You have to read this Herald story to believe it. It starts off describing how Stefon Diggs always seem to take a No. 2 bathroom break before, during or after Pats’ team meetings. “Diggs is extremely regular, something you wouldn’t know unless you’re a regular inside Vrabel’s team meetings,” writes the Herald. And it’s something we wouldn’t have known if we hadn’t read it in the Herald. … I’ve now seen it all. Literally pre-Super Bowl bullshit about bullshit.  … I was going to nominate this Globe story – about how Drake Maye likes pre-game peanut butter and jelly sandwiches – as the silliest scrape-the-bottom-of-the-barrel pre-Super Bowl coverage this week. But how can you possibly beat news about Stefon’s poopie breaks? I guess you could beat it if the Herald had reported on what Stefon reads or listens to while on the can. But I don’t think even the Herald would go that far. 

Distant silliest honorable-mention pre-Super Bowl story: Did you know that Super Bowl confetti is made right here in Massachusetts? It is! 

Thermo Fisher, Panera, Cape Cod Potato Chips, Zipcar. They’ve all recently announced job cuts and/or closing their headquarters in Massachusetts. And don’t forget all those people bolting the state for more affordable environs. So what does Gov. Maura Healey do? Hold a press conference about Trump’s immigration policies. The Globe’s Joan Vennochi has more. And so does, strangely, from a business-news standpoint, Howie Carr. 

Fyi: Re her press conference last week, I should have made the obvious re-election connection, in addition to the obvious playing-to-the-base connection. I didn’t. But Joan did.

Now this is a half-billion dollars well spent, as opposed to the corrupt half-billion dollars noted in the post immediately below. … Re the Pats’ half-billion, via the Journal:

“All told, the Patriots spent tens of millions firing a coaching staff and hiring a new one, doled out more than any other team in free agency and began construction on a new practice facility. And the scary part for the rest of the NFL is that this year’s success hardly looks like a blip. Belichick and Tom Brady are gone, but the conviction at Patriot Place is they are building for a new dynasty.”

Ah, dynastic music to our ears.

Btw: From a HB reader:

“(Re Mack Hollins piece at ESPN):  Reminiscent of the long gone long form stories that made ESPN The Magazine special. … I will avoid local news coverage of Drake Maye’s health boo-boos whilst acknowledging the reality that they have to write/talk about something. (But) I will not avoid analytics coverage from Barnwell and Aaron Schatz as long as we keep getting nuggets like this one. Not to get ahead of ourselves but I think two of the Patriot Super Bowl victories came against the teams on this list.”

They know it’s wrong. They know it’s corrupt. They know it’s far worse in scale than anything Hunter Biden ever did overseas. But you won’t hear a peep of protest about this among Trump supporters and Fox News watchers for obvious tribal/partisan  reasons. From the WSJ:

“Four days before Donald Trump’s inauguration last year, lieutenants to an Abu Dhabi royal secretly signed a deal with the Trump family to purchase a 49% stake in their fledgling cryptocurrency venture for half a billion dollars, according to company documents and people familiar with the matter. The buyers would pay half up front, steering $187 million to Trump family entities.

“The deal with World Liberty Financial, which hasn’t previously been reported, was signed by Eric Trump, the president’s son.”

A friend digitally dug this up for me — the very first Hub Blog entry, nearly 24 long years ago. … Gotta love the purple-and-white on the puke-green background. And then there’s my still active retro-hip hotmail account. … Ah, the memories. What was I doing back then? Basically, taking my time trying to find a full-time job, after living in Africa for six months and then helping a friend start up a small business publication. I think I also tried my hand, very briefly, at freelance PR work. I hated every millisecond of it. The bottom line: I had plenty of time to blog. And so I wrote up a storm.

Remember: There was no Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, Instagram, Substack etc. back then. Blogging was it. It was novel. And it was fun, particularly getting to know readers and other bloggers, many of them non-journalists who could write circles around ink-stained wretches like yours truly (and still write circles around ink-stained wretches like yours truly). … Anyway, I thought I’d share the screen shot above and a few old memories. …

Now it’s back to a much slower-paced Hub Blog of four or five posts a week versus four or five posts a day in 2002.

— This is a good summary of the governor’s $63 billion state budget plan: “Healey’s budget proposal reflects sober fiscal situation” (Globe)

— Well, it worked spectacularly well on paper and white boards: “Five years later, MBTA Communities Act spurs ‘real but modest’ change, report finds” (GBH)

— Another reason for many Americans to hate the Pats: “Patriots have a fan in the White House: President Trump rooting for team in Super Bowl” (Herald)

— And he’s now a fugitive from the law: “New film centers (on) a multi-millionaire’s now-defunct communist collective in the Berkshires” (GBH)

— You know it’s getting weird when you find yourself siding with Wall Street titans: “The Crypto CEO Who’s Become Enemy No. 1 on Wall Street” (WSJ)

— Let’s hope they mean it: “Top Dem: Senate Ready to Make Run at ‘Bold’ Housing Policies” (B&T)

— Weylu’s, RIP. But it’s for a good cause: “300 apartments proposed for site of once-iconic Route 1 restaurant” (BBJ)

— They’re now openly referring to him as a presidential contender – and that’s welcome news to many moderate liberals: “Josh Shapiro Takes a Gamble on His Faith” (The Atlantic) 

I’m certainly no fan of ICE, as you can see from my recent posts here and here and here. Now that I’ve quickly established that fact, I think I can safely say the following without being called a fascist Trump toady: what the heck is Gov. Maura Healey thinking by filing legislation that would bar ICE from schools, hospitals and courthouses while vowing to ban ICE from other state buildings and resources? She’s escalating the fight with ICE at the very moment they’re desperately trying to de-escalate tensions with ICE in Minneapolis. With classic media fanfare (notice the photo accompanying this GBH story), she’s practically taunting ICE – and they’re noticing in Washington, D.C., as the Herald reports. … This is not leadership. This is showboating.

The governor could learn a lesson or two from Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who just successfully worked behind the scenes to end ICE’s “enhanced” operations in her state. She de-escalated tensions without escalating them.

Now back to my recent ICE/Trump bashing.

Note: Since posting this item, I changed the spelling of “deescalate” to “de-escalate” (with a hyphen). Both are technically right. But the hyphen is more often used, so I changed it.

Update – 1.30-26 – From the WSJ’s Peggy Noonan: “America Needs Restraint—and Facts.” … She’s urging restraint from everyone: the administration, protesters, and the media.

Update II — 1.31.26 – Even before Healey’s press conference on Thursday, Jennifer Smith at CommonWealth Beacon was reporting that the state’s ability to block ICE action here was very limited. … And that’s what makes Healey’s move on Thursday irksome: it was mostly symbolic pandering to the Dem base at a time when de-escalation was and is needed.

Update III — 2.2.26 — The latest from the Herald: “White House responds to Healey’s increased criticism, actions against ICE.” … How does increased tensions help anyone? Has the governor even tried to get on the phone with the president? …

Talk about mission creep — or whatever you want to call it. But has UMass Lowell suddenly become an economic-development agency charged with attracting private-sector companies and jobs to Lowell, building a new hotel and a second ice rink to “accommodate tourists and business people coming to Lowell,” and generally striving to become the next Kendall Square? 

The BBJ reports on Chancellor Julie Chen’s grand live/work/play vision that will make Lowell a “place where employees of a company want to be.” The Greater Lowell Chamber of Commerce couldn’t have said it better! … No mention of a gazebo, btw. … And certainly no mention of how all this will lead to lower tuition prices for students and parents.

If the Boston City Council has to be weak and ineffective, it might as well be entertaining. And, boy, has it been entertaining of late. The new year started off with a bizarre council presidency vote that turned identify politics inside out — and yesterday the parliamentary insults and demands for apologies flew with abandon, right from the get-go, as the Herald reports in a great blow-by-blow account of the meaninglessness of it all.

There really are some principled conservatives left. Not many. But they’re there. Such as National Review editor Ramesh Ponnuru, who writes at the Post that the outright falsehoods issued by administration officials after the killing of Alex Pretti are “signs of moral rot and civic irresponsibility. People speak the way (Kristi) Noem and company have when they have decided that fighting their enemies, even the dead ones, is more important than being decent.”

And from George Will – yes, good old George Will – also at the Post:  

“Today, it is more than prudent, it is good citizenship to assume that everything ICE says, and everything the administration says in support of its deportation mania, is untrue until proved to be otherwise. Or, as Noem might say, until it has been ‘adjusted.’”

Update — 1.29.31 — One can add the Globe’s Jeff Jacoby to the list of principled conservatives.

Update II — 1.29.26 – Might as well throw in U.S. Judge Patrick Schiltz (via NYT)