Losers = The Three Socialist Stooges of CHT that believe this spectacularly wrong emotions. No facts. Just teenage gurl emotions.
Windmills and solar panels can provide enough zero pollution electricity by the country wide infrastructure that has already been signed by President Biden."
This story has been bothering me since I learned how the founding fathers feared in the past, and and why we need a way into the future, instead of the country in the late 1776 and each 18th century to the 21st century and beyond.
BY JOHN KENNETH WHITE,
The U.S. Constitution is the sacred text of American government and civic life. But it’s time to face facts: The document, written in 1787, isn’t working. The signs are all around us. According to Gallup, just 38 percent of Americans in a recent poll express either a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the presidency, down from 28 percent in 2001. Congress, never high in the public’s estimation to begin with, fell from a low mark of 26 percent to a mere 12 percent. The Supreme Court has also taken a hit, down from 50 percent to 36 percent during the same period.
One reason often cited for the failing Constitution are the people who inhabit its carefully crafted institutions. In Congress, serious legislators are scarce, as many members aim for viral recognition on social media. Freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) freely admitted, “I have built my staff around comms [communication], not legislation.” Cawthorn is hardly alone: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) represent a new breed of legislators who seek recognition and are largely uninterested in passing actual laws.
Disappointing presidents have become the norm. George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump failed to bring the country together, with Trump leaving office amplifying spurious claims of election fraud that led to the insurrection on Jan. 6. Although it is early in the Biden presidency, voter disenchantment is already clear, and the unity he promised in his inaugural address seems as elusive as ever. In the 19th century, James Bryce famously remarked that great men do not become presidents. Indeed, great presidents such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt are the exception, not the rule. An independent, a Republican and a Democrat.
Today, many see the courts not as arbiters of justice but inhabited by what Justice Amy Coney Barrett unsuccessfully tried to refute as “a bunch of partisan hacks.” Sixty-one percent of American adults surveyed by Quinnipiac now believe the decisions of the Supreme Court are motivated by politics; just 32 percent think its judgments are based on dispassionate readings of the law. Justice Sonia Sotomayor describes today’s court as “fractured.” She’s right.
But the Constitution’s failures go much deeper. The framers designed the presidency to execute laws, not make them. But the vagaries of congressional legislation have given the president the power to make laws through executive orders. The result is a roller coaster from one president to the next. Donald Trump loved signing executive orders, putting his Sharpie on 220 of them. Thus far, Joe Biden has signed 76 orders, with progressive Democrats urging even more. Trump enjoyed reversing Barack Obama’s executive orders; Biden feels the same way about Trump’s.
Meanwhile, Congress is failing to protect its constitutional prerogatives. Instead of reserving to itself the right to declare war, Congress has surrendered war-making to the president — something the framers assiduously sought to avoid.
When Trump egregiously ignored his oath to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution on Jan. 6, the prescribed constitutional remedy of impeachment and conviction failed. Rather than asserting its constitutional rights, Congress has surrendered them to extreme partisanship. In the House, congressional Republicans are willingly forfeiting Congress’s subpoena powers in the Jan. 6 investigation but seek to reassert them if they are rewarded with congressional control in 2023. In the Senate, the filibuster is no longer the rare instrument designed to halt legislation and foster debate. Instead, the 60-vote threshold has become the default mechanism to stop all legislation without a word.
When George Washington supposedly was asked by Thomas Jefferson why the Senate was created, he responded, “Why did you just now pour your coffee into that saucer, before drinking?” Jefferson answered, “To cool it.” Washington responded, “Even so, we pour our legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it.” The Senate was designed to cool legislation, not kill it.
As partisanship grips the nation, more turn to the Supreme Court to revoke actions that either party finds offensive. During the past 20 years, the Supreme Court has waded into numerous political controversies. In 2000, a conservative majority in Bush v. Gore found that George W. Bush’s constitutional right to equal protection under the law overrode Florida’s Supreme Court ruling that all ballots be hand counted.
However, the Supreme Court declared that its decision only applied to George W. Bush while ordinary citizens in poorer areas, whose inferior voting machines inaccurately count their votes, would have no jurisdiction. Since then, judicial partisanship has escalated, with the conservative Court keeping the 2021 Texas abortion law in place. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor concluded, “The Court thus betrays not only the citizens of Texas, but also our constitutional system of government.”
It won't be enough merely to reform the filibuster, add more justices to the Supreme Court, change presidents or surrender presidential powers to Congress. A document written in 1787 is inadequate for the 21st century. The Electoral College is poised to create more misfires, with popular vote winners not becoming president, as has happened twice already this century. Territorial expansion has resulted in 16 percent of the U.S. population controlling half the seats in the U.S. Senate.
The Dakotas are but one example. When the two states were admitted to the Union in 1888, Republicans deliberately split the territory in two, thereby creating four new senators, not two. Meanwhile, the “strict constructionists” of the Supreme Court resort to determining the original intent of a document written 234 years ago rather than understanding that it was a beginning, not an ending point.
Thomas Jefferson once remarked, “I hold it that a little rebellion every now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical.” Let’s face facts: The Constitution isn’t working. It’s time for a little rebellion.
Let’s face facts: The Constitution isn’t working. It’s time for a little rebellion.
Bring it, alky.
I guaran-fucking-tee you we have you clowns outgunned 100 to 1.
You fuckers are afraid to leave the house without 3 masks, so I don't see how you ever muster the courage to engage in a real knock down-drag out firefight.
Classic propaganda, and it's working on the truthers etc. And millions of normal people.
Let's go, Brandon' is much more than a cheesy nickname for Biden
By Christopher Garbacz
In a recent Salon article, Matthew Rozsa attempted to fold "Let's go, Brandon," into the long history of "insulting presidential nicknames." Aside from telling the risible falsehood that NBC's Kelli Stavast mistook a quite clear chant of "F--- Joe Biden" for "Let's Go, Brandon," Rozsa would have us believe that this is just another derogatory insult directed solely at the president, irrespective of what he stood for. That seriously underestimates the broad reach of that slogan, born from a desperately unhappy year for Americans.
In fact, "Let's go, Brandon" and its predecessor chant, "F--- Joe Biden," are directed to the core of D.C.'s central control of most everything that's gone wrong since January 20, 2021: inflation, regulation, taxes, debt, government policy failure, COVID mandates, wide-open borders, abortion, the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, Critical Race Theory, trans/gay this and that, and all the other assaults on America, both large and small. It's America's response to pervasive D.C. control.
You really can't say "F--- Joe Biden" very effectively outside a sports stadium. But the euphemism that one hapless NBC reporter created while she was trying to protect Joe Biden is classic. It fills a vacuum, and it has long legs. It isn't going away.
Why is the slogan so powerful? Partly, it's powerful, as noted above, because it's a reaction to Biden's "central government gone wild," with all the inevitable terrible results. The other reason is that it's slipped lose from Democrat control over American institutions. Hollywood, the media, and the political class — all leftist dominated — can't stop it.
January 6th committee seeks potentially damning Trump video made during 'hours of silence' during riot. What did he know and when did he know it.
"It's increasingly becoming more likely because they are looking at criminal referrals for the former president," Lowell said. "They're still looking at Bannon and they're still looking at Giuliani and [John] Eastman. These are the guys at the Willard that Trump called up Jan. 5 and sought advice. There were multiple war rooms. There is one with Eastman, Giuliani and Bannon and there was a separate one is where people like [Michael] Flynn and Roger Stone and Alex Jones. There was, like, a massive operation happening at the Willard."
"This is going to bloom really pivotally in the investigation," he added. "But it's true, they are now focusing on the culpability of Trump himself and whether he directed the Willard to then direct the Capitol attack, and if there was some sort of ongoing conspiracy."
The select committee has been criticized for moving too slowly ahead of next year’s midterm elections, but Lowell said they had already gathered substantial evidence despite Trump’s efforts to stall the investigation.“
"They're up against this deadline," he said. "It’s a hard deadline, it’s the end of this Congress at the latest because if Republicans retake the majority and this is the end of the committee, they’re not going to want to reinstate committee. So they are up against this time limit, but they have amassed a real trove of evidence. They spoke to [Mark] Meadows, he ultimately decided not to cooperate, and he did provide a trove of documents and communication and text messages which we have only seen a sliver of, and those are already quite damming, and Trump is in a bit of a meltdown, from what we understand, down in Mar-A-Lago."
I showed you what is happening "today" and you bring up fake numbers that obviously go back to the beginning of the pandemic? Probably got them from WaPo or NYT.
All they need to prove that Trump committed a crime is a video that they do not have that will show something illegal, even though they don't know what it it might be.
Ironclad case.
They really got Trump now! The walls are closing in and all that nonsense.
Thecoldheartedtruth is that it's not locked down. Gerrymandering in California matters more than you think.
Charlie Cook
@CharlieCookDC
President Biden and congressional Democrats could look back at this year with pride and accomplishment, given their passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and the $1 trillion infrastructure package. But instead, the first session of the 117th Congress is now in the history books, and Democrats head into the holiday season deeply demoralized, badly damaged politically, and with real reason to fear that Biden could become the fifth consecutive president to lose both Senate and House majorities on his watch.
A PBS/NPR/Marist College national survey out Monday was just the latest in a parade of dismal polls in recent weeks. This was not the ending that Democrats had in mind on Jan. 20.
While there is still a chance that Biden and maverick Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin can reach some agreement early next year for a scaled-down version of the Build Back Better Act, the budget reconciliation package with major social spending and climate-change funding, the reality is that Biden and Democratic congressional leaders badly miscalculated what was realistic given the circumstances of the 2020 election outcome. Not to beat on a dead horse but while so many Democrats are pointing fingers and cursing Manchin, or trashing him to sympathetic reporters, their time might be better spent trying to learn something from this debacle of a year.
Quite simply, if you want to do big things, you have to win elections big. The ambition of a party’s legislative and policy agenda should be commensurate with the magnitude of their victory. A meager victory won with the smallest of majorities demands a more modest agenda. Notwithstanding many worthy elements in what Democrats sought this year, proportionality was not to be found when comparing how Democrats did in 2020 and what they tried to do in 2021.
In the last four weeks, the average number of children hospitalized with Covid-19 jumped 52 percent, from a low of 1,270 on Nov. 29 to 1,933 on Sunday, according to an NBC News analysis of Department of Health and Human Services data.
In the same time period, adult Covid hospitalizations increased 29 percent, suggesting that pediatric hospitalizations rose at nearly twice the rate.
The number of kids hospitalized with Covid has more than doubled in 10 states, as well as in Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, according to the analysis. The data does not specify whether the children were vaccinated or vaccine-eligible.
But the states that have contributed the most to the rise in pediatric hospitalizations are Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Ohio.
They actually were going to kill the Justices of the Supreme Court.
The same people who organized Trump's fateful rally on the Ellipse had something else in store on Jan. 6: a rally planned in front of the Supreme Court.
By Josh Kovensky
December 28, 2021 9:11 a.m.
The same people who organized Trump’s fateful rally on the Ellipse had something else in store on Jan. 6: a separate, previously unreported rally planned in front of the Supreme Court.
According to text messages and invoices obtained by TPM and provided to the House Jan. 6 Committee, the rally outside of the Supreme Court was set for the afternoon of Jan. 6 with some of the same speakers scheduled to appear.
The plan for a Supreme Court rally after the event at the Ellipse reveals a new and different perspective on the geography and timing of the attack on the Capitol.
We already knew that President Trump amassed supporters at the Ellipse, at the White House end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and dispatched them toward the Capitol end of Pennsylvania Avenue, declaring that he would walk with them before promptly returning to the White House. But whether the rally at the Ellipse was planned as a march on the Capitol, even though it was never issued a march permit, remains a hotly contested issue. Regardless, rioters penetrated the Capitol even as the President was still speaking at the Ellipse.
But now TPM’s reporting suggests that the Ellipse rally organizers intended to hold a separate 2 p.m. ET event on the steps of the Supreme Court, across the street from the Capitol, where Congress began certifying the Electoral College vote at noon ET. It suggests that organizers wanted to keep up the pressure on Congress through an event far closer to the Capitol.
And to get there, Big Lie supporters would have had to walk past the Capitol building, traversing a geographic bit of irony: Constitution Avenue.
In the end the organizers delayed, then aborted the Supreme Court rally as the assault on the Capitol unfolded and roads around the building were blocked.
But the picture this new information paints is of a pressure campaign directed at lawmakers by Trump-aligned activists that would continue well after election certification was underway. It included the two big D.C. rallies that have already been reported — Jan. 5 at Freedom Plaza and Jan. 6 at the Ellipse — as well as a third in that set: a rally at the Supreme Court later on the day of the insurrection.
‘Hundreds, if not thousands’
A group of veteran conservative activists were involved in both of the Jan. 6 rallies: Women for America First, run by Tea Party activist Amy Kremer and her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer.
The Kremers, who hail from suburban Atlanta, arrived in D.C. on Jan. 6 fresh from a cross-country bus trip devoted to spreading the idea that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, all under the banner of the “March for Trump” group.
D.C. was the culmination of that long, national march — a series of rallies outside the main branches of government as Congress formalized the change in power: one in the morning outside the White House and, text messages, documents, and witness accounts show, another to be held outside of the Supreme Court.
The morning rally at the Ellipse was set to start at 9 a.m. ET. The Kremers gave raucous speeches excoriating the 2020 election, followed by the Trump sons. Other MAGA personalities like Diamond and Silk, Roger Stone, and Rudy Giuliani were expected to speak.
Over at the Supreme Court, security guards that had been subcontracted out from Women for America First had already arrived to help set up the rally.
One guard told TPM that upon arrival, he and other guards found a small stage and an array of sound equipment.
But as it turned out, the unsuspecting guards would be treated to a front-row seat view of the gathering insurrection.
“There were hundreds, if not thousands of them — and we just stood there, watching them marching,” one person hired to work as a security guard for the Supreme Court event told TPM.
But back at the Ellipse, organizers — at least officially — weren’t expecting a march.
According to a permit filed with the Department of the Interior, Women for America First organizers did not receive permission to stage a march from the Ellipse to the Capitol, or to anywhere else.
Instead, organizers created two events that day: one in the morning outside the White House, and one at the Supreme Court, set to begin at 2 p.m. ET.
There was no planning for a march of any kind.
“There were hundreds, if not thousands of them — and we just stood there, watching them marching.”
But for VIPs expected to attend the Supreme Court rally, getting from the Ellipse to the Supreme Court was always part of the plan.
Trump took the stage at the Ellipse rally at noon, and soon blew through his allotted window, according to Steve Bannon, who said later that day on his podcast that Trump “went over” his time — “he ad libbed, he riffed.”
To rally organizers, the Supreme Court event was timed to follow Trump’s remarks.
“Once POTUS is done speaking here, the special guests will leave for scotus,” one Jan. 6 text message from a security person, sent at 12:51 p.m. ET, reads.
Two minutes later, video published by ProPublica shows, the first insurrectionists began to overwhelm the outer defenses of Capitol police.
At the time, rally organizers were still focused on getting VIPs to the Supreme Court. In this case, that meant the Kremers and Diamond and Silk.
Around 45 minutes later, at 1:37 p.m. ET, a security guard texted that he was on the move in two golf carts.
“One for Amy and Kylie. One for Diamond and Silk,” the message reads.
Neither the Kremers nor Diamond and Silk returned repeated requests for comment.
It’s not clear whether organizers exhorted attendees to go from the White House to the Supreme Court — a journey that would have forced people to walk by and around the Capitol building. An archived version of the March for Trump website does not mention a Supreme Court rally on Jan. 6.
But an invoice for a security subcontractor obtained by TPM and sent to the Jan. 6 Committee shows that organizers planned to provide security for an event at the Supreme Court: Eleven guards were hired to handle the rally on the Ellipse, two people for the Jan. 5 rally at Freedom Plaza, and four people to staff the rally at SCOTUS.
But with Trump having gone over his time and an insurrection beginning to unfold at the Capitol, the Supreme Court event began to disintegrate.
Pro-Trump supporters march in front of the Supreme Court on January 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
Security guards working the Supreme Court rally were first told to be ready for the event to begin at 2 p.m. ET, while speakers and special guests were set to begin at 3 p.m., ET texts say.
“We were there freezing our butts off until after the speeches — when they started the insurrection,” one security guard who worked the event told TPM, referring to the speeches at the Ellipse.
But the start time began to get pushed back, the guard said.
At 1:40 p.m. ET, the Kremers and Diamond and Silk still hadn’t reached the Supreme Court. Rather, texts say, they had made it to the Willard Hotel — the Trump team’s “command center” in its bid to block Biden from taking office.
“We should be good to collapse back to the hotel, regroup and prep for SCOTUS,” one text message concludes.
But the situation at the Capitol was only getting more violent.
At 2:12 p.m. ET, the first insurgents broke into the Capitol building itself. Members of Congress and senators were being evacuated, as news reports showed massive crowds overrunning the inauguration scaffolding.
The private security guards at the Supreme Court rally site didn’t know what to expect. One guard told TPM that he “thought it was gonna be a bunch of these preachers that were gonna talk about Trump being a prophet, and end-times stuff.”
Instead, he got a view of the Capitol being stormed.
“The Trumpers kept asking us, you guys aren’t Antifa are you?” the guard recalls. “And we’re like no, we’re security.”
The same person recalled speaking with Supreme Court police watching the attack, asking them why they weren’t assisting the overrun Capitol police.
The Jan. 6 Committee is reviewing this information as part of its investigation into the attack on the Capitol and Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election.
A document released by DHS showed an official saying before the insurrection that authorities expected “large groups” at both the Capitol and the Supreme Court, while the Federal Protective Service also anticipated protests outside the building.
A Capitol Police spokesperson declined to comment. A Supreme Court spokesperson also declined to comment.
At 2:18 p.m. ET, a security official texted a Whatsapp group for the private security guards at the Supreme Court: “Effective ASAP. Shut down operations at SCOTUS.”
“Protestors storming US Capitol. You guys be careful leaving there,” the message reads.
Gov. DeSantis is doing a disservice to constituents by remaining quiet on the numbers of new Omicron cases spiking throughout Florida, especially during the Christmas and New Year's holidays, when people flock to Florida to visit friends, relatives or to simply enjoy the weather. For a person who wants to be president, he appears to show little interest in the health and welfare of the same people who may be victims of his silence.
Well Roger... so there was a rally that didn't happen at the USSC.
You really got Trump now!!!
On the run! Walls closing in!
So instead of fictional loser alky bullshit, let's go back to a time when the USSC WAS legitimately threatened and had to be rebuked by the Chief Justice:
WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John Roberts publicly chastised Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday over comments Schumer made outside the Supreme Court as the justices were hearing a case on abortion rights.
Schumer, D-N.Y., suggested that President Donald Trump's court appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, "won't know what hit" them if they vote to uphold abortion restrictions. He spoke during a rally on the sidewalk in front of the court building.
"I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price," Schumer said.
In a highly unusual written statement issued late Wednesday, Roberts said, "Statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous."
"All members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter," Roberts said.
And let's not forget the melee' that ensured when rabid, apeshit liberals made a spectacle out of the Kavanaugh hearings and subsequent swearing in.
Protesters pound the doors of the Supreme Court following Kavanaugh confirmation
U.S. Capitol Police said a total of 164 people were arrested during the protests for "crowding, obstructing, or incommoding."
A throng of protesters pushed past a police line, storming up steps to pound on the doors of the U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday after the Senate confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh.
"Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Kavanaugh has got to go," the protesters chanted as they flooded the steps of the court, many with fists raised in the air, others with arms linked.
Police eventually were able to form a line between the door and the group of protesters and later shepherded them back down the steps before erecting a barricade.
But now TPM’s reporting suggests that the Ellipse rally organizers intended to hold a separate 2 p.m. ET event on the steps of the Supreme Court, across the street from the Capitol, where Congress began certifying the Electoral College vote at noon ET. It suggests that organizers wanted to keep up the pressure on Congress through an event far closer to the Capitol.
Oh, so it was a fucking Josh Marshall LIE.
I should've known.
Hey alky -
You and the "5th Beatle" got plans for New Year's Eve?
Have you two settled on who's 'pitching' and who's 'catching'?
Josh Kovensky is an investigative reporter for Talking Points Memo, based in New York. He previously worked for the Kyiv Post in Ukraine, covering politics, business, and corruption there.
How much you want to bet this asshole is tight with Lt. Col. Bearclaw.
To me, the biggest loser in 2021 was the year itself, even though 2021 was better than 2020.
2021 began with great promise. There were vaccines for COVID-19 that would soon enable people to return to their lives before the pandemic began. An extremely divisive and toxic president had been defeated at the polls and would be leaving office in mid-January.
But the promise of 2021 didn't last long. The January 6 storming of the Capitol by supporters of the defeated incumbent was just the first shoe to drop. The new president was even more aggressive at reversing policies of the former guy than the former guy had been in reversing those of his own predecessor, and seemed to do so with even less forethought than the former guy. Rather than govern from near the center, the new president seemed as interested in promoting the interests of a distinct minority of the populace as the former guy. A series of open mic gaffes, and a vice president who was frequently compared to a previous VP that couldn't spell potato, continued to tarnish the promise in this area throughout the year.
In 2021, taking the COVID-19 vaccines, developed by the previous administration, became a partisan issue, with much of the party of the previous administration actively opposing efforts to immunize the population and defeat coronavirus. The coronavirus then threw two nasty curves at the world, the Delta and Omicron variants. The first disrupted our summer, the second disrupted the year end holidays. The vaccines were extremely effective against Delta, but it turned out protection waned after 6 to 8 months and booster shots were needed, which again became a partisan issue. Omicron proved to be far more transmissible than earlier variants, and was much more capable of bypassing the vaccines' protection as well. The only saving grace of Omicron is that it results in far fewer serious cases per infection than earlier variants.
2021 did not fare well in other areas either. The withdrawal of the US-led coalition from Afghanistan was, to put a positive spin on it, a fiasco. The two main geopolitical rivals of the US, China and Russia, blatantly threatened invasions of their neighbors, Taiwan and Ukraine. Endemic problems from previous years, such as major forest fires and mass murders, showed no signs of abating.
So, here's hoping that 2022 will be much better than 2021 was.
47 comments:
Biggest winner....Tom Brady. Bill who?
Runner-up...new NYC mayor Eric Adams. All of NY can't wait to be rid of Deblasio. Adams cannot fail.
Biggest loser....apologies to our president and vice president, but the Cuomo family is a lock for this one.
Biggest loser. Trump and the big lie believers like you Lil Schitty !!!!!!!!!
That was in 1020. Winner/losers are for 2021.
Losers = The Three Socialist Stooges of CHT that believe this spectacularly wrong emotions.
No facts. Just teenage gurl emotions.
Windmills and solar panels can provide enough zero pollution electricity by the country wide infrastructure that has already been signed by President Biden."
This story has been bothering me since I learned how the founding fathers feared in the past, and and why we need a way into the future, instead of the country in the late 1776 and each 18th century to the 21st century and beyond.
BY JOHN KENNETH WHITE,
The U.S. Constitution is the sacred text of American government and civic life. But it’s time to face facts: The document, written in 1787, isn’t working. The signs are all around us. According to Gallup, just 38 percent of Americans in a recent poll express either a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the presidency, down from 28 percent in 2001. Congress, never high in the public’s estimation to begin with, fell from a low mark of 26 percent to a mere 12 percent. The Supreme Court has also taken a hit, down from 50 percent to 36 percent during the same period.
One reason often cited for the failing Constitution are the people who inhabit its carefully crafted institutions. In Congress, serious legislators are scarce, as many members aim for viral recognition on social media. Freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) freely admitted, “I have built my staff around comms [communication], not legislation.” Cawthorn is hardly alone: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) represent a new breed of legislators who seek recognition and are largely uninterested in passing actual laws.
Disappointing presidents have become the norm. George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump failed to bring the country together, with Trump leaving office amplifying spurious claims of election fraud that led to the insurrection on Jan. 6. Although it is early in the Biden presidency, voter disenchantment is already clear, and the unity he promised in his inaugural address seems as elusive as ever. In the 19th century, James Bryce famously remarked that great men do not become presidents. Indeed, great presidents such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt are the exception, not the rule. An independent, a Republican and a Democrat.
Today, many see the courts not as arbiters of justice but inhabited by what Justice Amy Coney Barrett unsuccessfully tried to refute as “a bunch of partisan hacks.” Sixty-one percent of American adults surveyed by Quinnipiac now believe the decisions of the Supreme Court are motivated by politics; just 32 percent think its judgments are based on dispassionate readings of the law. Justice Sonia Sotomayor describes today’s court as “fractured.” She’s right.
But the Constitution’s failures go much deeper. The framers designed the presidency to execute laws, not make them. But the vagaries of congressional legislation have given the president the power to make laws through executive orders. The result is a roller coaster from one president to the next. Donald Trump loved signing executive orders, putting his Sharpie on 220 of them. Thus far, Joe Biden has signed 76 orders, with progressive Democrats urging even more. Trump enjoyed reversing Barack Obama’s executive orders; Biden feels the same way about Trump’s.
Meanwhile, Congress is failing to protect its constitutional prerogatives. Instead of reserving to itself the right to declare war, Congress has surrendered war-making to the president — something the framers assiduously sought to avoid.
When Trump egregiously ignored his oath to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution on Jan. 6, the prescribed constitutional remedy of impeachment and conviction failed. Rather than asserting its constitutional rights, Congress has surrendered them to extreme partisanship. In the House, congressional Republicans are willingly forfeiting Congress’s subpoena powers in the Jan. 6 investigation but seek to reassert them if they are rewarded with congressional control in 2023. In the Senate, the filibuster is no longer the rare instrument designed to halt legislation and foster debate. Instead, the 60-vote threshold has become the default mechanism to stop all legislation without a word.
When George Washington supposedly was asked by Thomas Jefferson why the Senate was created, he responded, “Why did you just now pour your coffee into that saucer, before drinking?” Jefferson answered, “To cool it.” Washington responded, “Even so, we pour our legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it.” The Senate was designed to cool legislation, not kill it.
As partisanship grips the nation, more turn to the Supreme Court to revoke actions that either party finds offensive. During the past 20 years, the Supreme Court has waded into numerous political controversies. In 2000, a conservative majority in Bush v. Gore found that George W. Bush’s constitutional right to equal protection under the law overrode Florida’s Supreme Court ruling that all ballots be hand counted.
However, the Supreme Court declared that its decision only applied to George W. Bush while ordinary citizens in poorer areas, whose inferior voting machines inaccurately count their votes, would have no jurisdiction. Since then, judicial partisanship has escalated, with the conservative Court keeping the 2021 Texas abortion law in place. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor concluded, “The Court thus betrays not only the citizens of Texas, but also our constitutional system of government.”
It won't be enough merely to reform the filibuster, add more justices to the Supreme Court, change presidents or surrender presidential powers to Congress. A document written in 1787 is inadequate for the 21st century. The Electoral College is poised to create more misfires, with popular vote winners not becoming president, as has happened twice already this century. Territorial expansion has resulted in 16 percent of the U.S. population controlling half the seats in the U.S. Senate.
The Dakotas are but one example. When the two states were admitted to the Union in 1888, Republicans deliberately split the territory in two, thereby creating four new senators, not two. Meanwhile, the “strict constructionists” of the Supreme Court resort to determining the original intent of a document written 234 years ago rather than understanding that it was a beginning, not an ending point.
Thomas Jefferson once remarked, “I hold it that a little rebellion every now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical.” Let’s face facts: The Constitution isn’t working. It’s time for a little rebellion.
The trick is that given how deeply divided the country is today.
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/587431-the-constitution-isnt-working?rnd=1640648206
Winners:
Rittenhouse
Manchin
Sinema
Lydia
Losers:
Juicy So-molly-aye
The Cuomo Bros.
Dementia Joe
Cum-Allah Harris
The Alky
"Pastor" Pederast
BWAA
Let’s face facts: The Constitution isn’t working. It’s time for a little rebellion.
Bring it, alky.
I guaran-fucking-tee you we have you clowns outgunned 100 to 1.
You fuckers are afraid to leave the house without 3 masks, so I don't see how you ever muster the courage to engage in a real knock down-drag out firefight.
Oh, and alky?
To me there's nothing funnier than some asshat leftist lecturing the rest of us on the US Constitution.
Comedy fucking GOLD.
Lydia. = Winner
Exactly , she survived.
96 NFL players have tested positive for Covid, while 95% of the NFL is vaccinated.
Or as the alky says - "got immune."
LOL.
Bottom Up Economics defined by James
Since Alky and Dopie could not.
"As everyone knows, it's simple:
Economically helping all Americans = Biden economics.
Economically helping only the wealthy = Trump economics."
No Facts, All Emotion.
Classic propaganda, and it's working on the truthers etc. And millions of normal people.
Let's go, Brandon' is much more than a cheesy nickname for Biden
By Christopher Garbacz
In a recent Salon article, Matthew Rozsa attempted to fold "Let's go, Brandon," into the long history of "insulting presidential nicknames." Aside from telling the risible falsehood that NBC's Kelli Stavast mistook a quite clear chant of "F--- Joe Biden" for "Let's Go, Brandon," Rozsa would have us believe that this is just another derogatory insult directed solely at the president, irrespective of what he stood for. That seriously underestimates the broad reach of that slogan, born from a desperately unhappy year for Americans.
In fact, "Let's go, Brandon" and its predecessor chant, "F--- Joe Biden," are directed to the core of D.C.'s central control of most everything that's gone wrong since January 20, 2021: inflation, regulation, taxes, debt, government policy failure, COVID mandates, wide-open borders, abortion, the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, Critical Race Theory, trans/gay this and that, and all the other assaults on America, both large and small. It's America's response to pervasive D.C. control.
You really can't say "F--- Joe Biden" very effectively outside a sports stadium. But the euphemism that one hapless NBC reporter created while she was trying to protect Joe Biden is classic. It fills a vacuum, and it has long legs. It isn't going away.
Why is the slogan so powerful? Partly, it's powerful, as noted above, because it's a reaction to Biden's "central government gone wild," with all the inevitable terrible results. The other reason is that it's slipped lose from Democrat control over American institutions. Hollywood, the media, and the political class — all leftist dominated — can't stop it.
Caliphate4vrDecember 28, 2021 at 10:51 AM
Blogger Roger Amick said...
Heating up your home can cost a lot more than when the weather conditions are not going down!
Blue cheese and croutons, please
Reply
Replies
Roger AmickDecember 28, 2021 at 10:53 AM
Usually natural gas or electricity warms up the houses and both prices are rising because of climate changes!"
Roger, you are a human disaster.
You have zero ability to use , facts, logic or reasoning.
Lydia survived!!
States with the most cases per capita
Tennessee 17.3%
North Dakota 16.4%
Florida 16.2%
Mississippi 16.0%
Arkansas 16.0%
All of them have a lower vaccine injections rates than the other 45 states
The winner will be the United States of America.
The loser is the former President's panic attack.
January 6th committee seeks potentially damning Trump video made during 'hours of silence' during riot. What did he know and when did he know it.
"It's increasingly becoming more likely because they are looking at criminal referrals for the former president," Lowell said. "They're still looking at Bannon and they're still looking at Giuliani and [John] Eastman. These are the guys at the Willard that Trump called up Jan. 5 and sought advice. There were multiple war rooms. There is one with Eastman, Giuliani and Bannon and there was a separate one is where people like [Michael] Flynn and Roger Stone and Alex Jones. There was, like, a massive operation happening at the Willard."
"This is going to bloom really pivotally in the investigation," he added. "But it's true, they are now focusing on the culpability of Trump himself and whether he directed the Willard to then direct the Capitol attack, and if there was some sort of ongoing conspiracy."
The select committee has been criticized for moving too slowly ahead of next year’s midterm elections, but Lowell said they had already gathered substantial evidence despite Trump’s efforts to stall the investigation.“
"They're up against this deadline," he said. "It’s a hard deadline, it’s the end of this Congress at the latest because if Republicans retake the majority and this is the end of the committee, they’re not going to want to reinstate committee. So they are up against this time limit, but they have amassed a real trove of evidence. They spoke to [Mark] Meadows, he ultimately decided not to cooperate, and he did provide a trove of documents and communication and text messages which we have only seen a sliver of, and those are already quite damming, and Trump is in a bit of a meltdown, from what we understand, down in Mar-A-Lago."
Roger...
Seriously, stop trying to look smart!
I showed you what is happening "today" and you bring up fake numbers that obviously go back to the beginning of the pandemic? Probably got them from WaPo or NYT.
Or more likely, potentially irrelevant video.
Yeah Balls...
All they need to prove that Trump committed a crime is a video that they do not have that will show something illegal, even though they don't know what it it might be.
Ironclad case.
They really got Trump now! The walls are closing in and all that nonsense.
MSNBC
Thecoldheartedtruth is that it's not locked down. Gerrymandering in California matters more than you think.
Charlie Cook
@CharlieCookDC
President Biden and congressional Democrats could look back at this year with pride and accomplishment, given their passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and the $1 trillion infrastructure package. But instead, the first session of the 117th Congress is now in the history books, and Democrats head into the holiday season deeply demoralized, badly damaged politically, and with real reason to fear that Biden could become the fifth consecutive president to lose both Senate and House majorities on his watch.
A PBS/NPR/Marist College national survey out Monday was just the latest in a parade of dismal polls in recent weeks. This was not the ending that Democrats had in mind on Jan. 20.
While there is still a chance that Biden and maverick Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin can reach some agreement early next year for a scaled-down version of the Build Back Better Act, the budget reconciliation package with major social spending and climate-change funding, the reality is that Biden and Democratic congressional leaders badly miscalculated what was realistic given the circumstances of the 2020 election outcome. Not to beat on a dead horse but while so many Democrats are pointing fingers and cursing Manchin, or trashing him to sympathetic reporters, their time might be better spent trying to learn something from this debacle of a year.
Quite simply, if you want to do big things, you have to win elections big. The ambition of a party’s legislative and policy agenda should be commensurate with the magnitude of their victory. A meager victory won with the smallest of majorities demands a more modest agenda. Notwithstanding many worthy elements in what Democrats sought this year, proportionality was not to be found when comparing how Democrats did in 2020 and what they tried to do in 2021.
NBC communist domination lollipop
In the last four weeks, the average number of children hospitalized with Covid-19 jumped 52 percent, from a low of 1,270 on Nov. 29 to 1,933 on Sunday, according to an NBC News analysis of Department of Health and Human Services data.
In the same time period, adult Covid hospitalizations increased 29 percent, suggesting that pediatric hospitalizations rose at nearly twice the rate.
The number of kids hospitalized with Covid has more than doubled in 10 states, as well as in Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, according to the analysis. The data does not specify whether the children were vaccinated or vaccine-eligible.
But the states that have contributed the most to the rise in pediatric hospitalizations are Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Ohio.
Florida is number one!
They actually were going to kill the Justices of the Supreme Court.
The same people who organized Trump's fateful rally on the Ellipse had something else in store on Jan. 6: a rally planned in front of the Supreme Court.
By Josh Kovensky
December 28, 2021 9:11 a.m.
The same people who organized Trump’s fateful rally on the Ellipse had something else in store on Jan. 6: a separate, previously unreported rally planned in front of the Supreme Court.
According to text messages and invoices obtained by TPM and provided to the House Jan. 6 Committee, the rally outside of the Supreme Court was set for the afternoon of Jan. 6 with some of the same speakers scheduled to appear.
The plan for a Supreme Court rally after the event at the Ellipse reveals a new and different perspective on the geography and timing of the attack on the Capitol.
We already knew that President Trump amassed supporters at the Ellipse, at the White House end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and dispatched them toward the Capitol end of Pennsylvania Avenue, declaring that he would walk with them before promptly returning to the White House. But whether the rally at the Ellipse was planned as a march on the Capitol, even though it was never issued a march permit, remains a hotly contested issue. Regardless, rioters penetrated the Capitol even as the President was still speaking at the Ellipse.
But now TPM’s reporting suggests that the Ellipse rally organizers intended to hold a separate 2 p.m. ET event on the steps of the Supreme Court, across the street from the Capitol, where Congress began certifying the Electoral College vote at noon ET. It suggests that organizers wanted to keep up the pressure on Congress through an event far closer to the Capitol.
And to get there, Big Lie supporters would have had to walk past the Capitol building, traversing a geographic bit of irony: Constitution Avenue.
In the end the organizers delayed, then aborted the Supreme Court rally as the assault on the Capitol unfolded and roads around the building were blocked.
But the picture this new information paints is of a pressure campaign directed at lawmakers by Trump-aligned activists that would continue well after election certification was underway. It included the two big D.C. rallies that have already been reported — Jan. 5 at Freedom Plaza and Jan. 6 at the Ellipse — as well as a third in that set: a rally at the Supreme Court later on the day of the insurrection.
‘Hundreds, if not thousands’
A group of veteran conservative activists were involved in both of the Jan. 6 rallies: Women for America First, run by Tea Party activist Amy Kremer and her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer.
The Kremers, who hail from suburban Atlanta, arrived in D.C. on Jan. 6 fresh from a cross-country bus trip devoted to spreading the idea that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, all under the banner of the “March for Trump” group.
D.C. was the culmination of that long, national march — a series of rallies outside the main branches of government as Congress formalized the change in power: one in the morning outside the White House and, text messages, documents, and witness accounts show, another to be held outside of the Supreme Court.
The morning rally at the Ellipse was set to start at 9 a.m. ET. The Kremers gave raucous speeches excoriating the 2020 election, followed by the Trump sons. Other MAGA personalities like Diamond and Silk, Roger Stone, and Rudy Giuliani were expected to speak.
Roger Amick said...
The trick is that given how deeply divided the country is today.
Well over 60 % are now united !!!
FANTASTIC !!!
what a great holiday
everyone ignored Fauci
and Biden Bi-partisanly Battered
There is a Santa
Over at the Supreme Court, security guards that had been subcontracted out from Women for America First had already arrived to help set up the rally.
One guard told TPM that upon arrival, he and other guards found a small stage and an array of sound equipment.
But as it turned out, the unsuspecting guards would be treated to a front-row seat view of the gathering insurrection.
“There were hundreds, if not thousands of them — and we just stood there, watching them marching,” one person hired to work as a security guard for the Supreme Court event told TPM.
But back at the Ellipse, organizers — at least officially — weren’t expecting a march.
According to a permit filed with the Department of the Interior, Women for America First organizers did not receive permission to stage a march from the Ellipse to the Capitol, or to anywhere else.
Instead, organizers created two events that day: one in the morning outside the White House, and one at the Supreme Court, set to begin at 2 p.m. ET.
There was no planning for a march of any kind.
“There were hundreds, if not thousands of them — and we just stood there, watching them marching.”
But for VIPs expected to attend the Supreme Court rally, getting from the Ellipse to the Supreme Court was always part of the plan.
Trump took the stage at the Ellipse rally at noon, and soon blew through his allotted window, according to Steve Bannon, who said later that day on his podcast that Trump “went over” his time — “he ad libbed, he riffed.”
To rally organizers, the Supreme Court event was timed to follow Trump’s remarks.
“Once POTUS is done speaking here, the special guests will leave for scotus,” one Jan. 6 text message from a security person, sent at 12:51 p.m. ET, reads.
Two minutes later, video published by ProPublica shows, the first insurrectionists began to overwhelm the outer defenses of Capitol police.
At the time, rally organizers were still focused on getting VIPs to the Supreme Court. In this case, that meant the Kremers and Diamond and Silk.
Around 45 minutes later, at 1:37 p.m. ET, a security guard texted that he was on the move in two golf carts.
“One for Amy and Kylie. One for Diamond and Silk,” the message reads.
Neither the Kremers nor Diamond and Silk returned repeated requests for comment.
It’s not clear whether organizers exhorted attendees to go from the White House to the Supreme Court — a journey that would have forced people to walk by and around the Capitol building. An archived version of the March for Trump website does not mention a Supreme Court rally on Jan. 6.
But an invoice for a security subcontractor obtained by TPM and sent to the Jan. 6 Committee shows that organizers planned to provide security for an event at the Supreme Court: Eleven guards were hired to handle the rally on the Ellipse, two people for the Jan. 5 rally at Freedom Plaza, and four people to staff the rally at SCOTUS.
But with Trump having gone over his time and an insurrection beginning to unfold at the Capitol, the Supreme Court event began to disintegrate.
Pro-Trump supporters march in front of the Supreme Court on January 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
Security guards working the Supreme Court rally were first told to be ready for the event to begin at 2 p.m. ET, while speakers and special guests were set to begin at 3 p.m., ET texts say.
“We were there freezing our butts off until after the speeches — when they started the insurrection,” one security guard who worked the event told TPM, referring to the speeches at the Ellipse.
But the start time began to get pushed back, the guard said.
At 1:40 p.m. ET, the Kremers and Diamond and Silk still hadn’t reached the Supreme Court. Rather, texts say, they had made it to the Willard Hotel — the Trump team’s “command center” in its bid to block Biden from taking office.
“We should be good to collapse back to the hotel, regroup and prep for SCOTUS,” one text message concludes.
But the situation at the Capitol was only getting more violent.
At 2:12 p.m. ET, the first insurgents broke into the Capitol building itself. Members of Congress and senators were being evacuated, as news reports showed massive crowds overrunning the inauguration scaffolding.
The private security guards at the Supreme Court rally site didn’t know what to expect. One guard told TPM that he “thought it was gonna be a bunch of these preachers that were gonna talk about Trump being a prophet, and end-times stuff.”
Instead, he got a view of the Capitol being stormed.
“The Trumpers kept asking us, you guys aren’t Antifa are you?” the guard recalls. “And we’re like no, we’re security.”
The same person recalled speaking with Supreme Court police watching the attack, asking them why they weren’t assisting the overrun Capitol police.
The Jan. 6 Committee is reviewing this information as part of its investigation into the attack on the Capitol and Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election.
A document released by DHS showed an official saying before the insurrection that authorities expected “large groups” at both the Capitol and the Supreme Court, while the Federal Protective Service also anticipated protests outside the building.
A Capitol Police spokesperson declined to comment. A Supreme Court spokesperson also declined to comment.
At 2:18 p.m. ET, a security official texted a Whatsapp group for the private security guards at the Supreme Court: “Effective ASAP. Shut down operations at SCOTUS.”
“Protestors storming US Capitol. You guys be careful leaving there,” the message reads.
Sedition is okay but treason has a death penalty.
Winners
Tucker Carlson
Independent journalists
Moms
Losers
Entire Biden administration
Cocaine Mitch
almost left off the obvious...
BIGGEST LOSER is a REPEAT
roger amick
24/7
ROFLMFAO !!!
You are insane, Alky
But what else do you have to do, in 600’ semi private room for $2500 with the 5th Beatle
Pitiful
Blogger Commonsense said...
That was in 1020. Winner/losers are for 2021.
Silly me cramps....especially since the insurrection and big lie reached its peak in 2021. BWAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
Loser: Roger Amick
Gov. DeSantis is doing a disservice to constituents by remaining quiet on the numbers of new Omicron cases spiking throughout Florida, especially during the Christmas and New Year's holidays, when people flock to Florida to visit friends, relatives or to simply enjoy the weather. For a person who wants to be president, he appears to show little interest in the health and welfare of the same people who may be victims of his silence.
Robert Langer, Palm Beach Gardens
A letter to the editor is big news to fatman
Silly me cramps....especially since the insurrection and big lie reached its peak in 2021. BWAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
The only thing that reaches its peak is your TDS fueled obsessions.
Go out and have a life. Really, it will help you from your disease.
Well Roger... so there was a rally that didn't happen at the USSC.
You really got Trump now!!!
On the run! Walls closing in!
Damn funny and true.
"But what else do you have to do, in 600’ semi private room for $2500 with the 5th Beatle" Cali
Blogger C.H. Truth said...
Well Roger... so there was a rally that didn't happen at the USSC.
You really got Trump now!!!
On the run! Walls closing in!
So instead of fictional loser alky bullshit, let's go back to a time when the USSC WAS legitimately threatened and had to be rebuked by the Chief Justice:
WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John Roberts publicly chastised Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday over comments Schumer made outside the Supreme Court as the justices were hearing a case on abortion rights.
Schumer, D-N.Y., suggested that President Donald Trump's court appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, "won't know what hit" them if they vote to uphold abortion restrictions. He spoke during a rally on the sidewalk in front of the court building.
"I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price," Schumer said.
In a highly unusual written statement issued late Wednesday, Roberts said, "Statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous."
"All members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter," Roberts said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/rare-rebuke-chief-justice-roberts-slams-schumer-threatening-comments-n1150036
And let's not forget the melee' that ensured when rabid, apeshit liberals made a spectacle out of the Kavanaugh hearings and subsequent swearing in.
Protesters pound the doors of the Supreme Court following Kavanaugh confirmation
U.S. Capitol Police said a total of 164 people were arrested during the protests for "crowding, obstructing, or incommoding."
A throng of protesters pushed past a police line, storming up steps to pound on the doors of the U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday after the Senate confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh.
"Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Kavanaugh has got to go," the protesters chanted as they flooded the steps of the court, many with fists raised in the air, others with arms linked.
Police eventually were able to form a line between the door and the group of protesters and later shepherded them back down the steps before erecting a barricade.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/protests-build-capitol-hill-ahead-brett-kavanaugh-vote-n917351
So alky, tell us again about the Trump supporters who NEVER stormed the USSC.
LOL.
But now TPM’s reporting suggests that the Ellipse rally organizers intended to hold a separate 2 p.m. ET event on the steps of the Supreme Court, across the street from the Capitol, where Congress began certifying the Electoral College vote at noon ET. It suggests that organizers wanted to keep up the pressure on Congress through an event far closer to the Capitol.
Oh, so it was a fucking Josh Marshall LIE.
I should've known.
Hey alky -
You and the "5th Beatle" got plans for New Year's Eve?
Have you two settled on who's 'pitching' and who's 'catching'?
LOL.
Bideneconmic Bottom up Economics "helps" the poor ?
Housing becomes more unaffordable under Bottom up Economics, "19.1%" increase Year over year.
Josh Kovensky is an investigative reporter for Talking Points Memo, based in New York. He previously worked for the Kyiv Post in Ukraine, covering politics, business, and corruption there.
How much you want to bet this asshole is tight with Lt. Col. Bearclaw.
LOL.
How much you wanna bet no one gives a flying fuck but you,, rat......especially knowing your go to source is PJ bwAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
Bideneconmic Bottom up Economics "helps" the poor ?
Housing becomes more unaffordable under Bottom up Economics, "19.1%" increase Year over year.
BWAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Coming from an asshole who lives in his mommy's root cellar!!!!!! LOLOLOLOLOLO
To me, the biggest loser in 2021 was the year itself, even though 2021 was better than 2020.
2021 began with great promise. There were vaccines for COVID-19 that would soon enable people to return to their lives before the pandemic began. An extremely divisive and toxic president had been defeated at the polls and would be leaving office in mid-January.
But the promise of 2021 didn't last long. The January 6 storming of the Capitol by supporters of the defeated incumbent was just the first shoe to drop. The new president was even more aggressive at reversing policies of the former guy than the former guy had been in reversing those of his own predecessor, and seemed to do so with even less forethought than the former guy. Rather than govern from near the center, the new president seemed as interested in promoting the interests of a distinct minority of the populace as the former guy. A series of open mic gaffes, and a vice president who was frequently compared to a previous VP that couldn't spell potato, continued to tarnish the promise in this area throughout the year.
In 2021, taking the COVID-19 vaccines, developed by the previous administration, became a partisan issue, with much of the party of the previous administration actively opposing efforts to immunize the population and defeat coronavirus. The coronavirus then threw two nasty curves at the world, the Delta and Omicron variants. The first disrupted our summer, the second disrupted the year end holidays. The vaccines were extremely effective against Delta, but it turned out protection waned after 6 to 8 months and booster shots were needed, which again became a partisan issue. Omicron proved to be far more transmissible than earlier variants, and was much more capable of bypassing the vaccines' protection as well. The only saving grace of Omicron is that it results in far fewer serious cases per infection than earlier variants.
2021 did not fare well in other areas either. The withdrawal of the US-led coalition from Afghanistan was, to put a positive spin on it, a fiasco. The two main geopolitical rivals of the US, China and Russia, blatantly threatened invasions of their neighbors, Taiwan and Ukraine. Endemic problems from previous years, such as major forest fires and mass murders, showed no signs of abating.
So, here's hoping that 2022 will be much better than 2021 was.
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