These are in no particular order.
- Kevin McCarthy still can't scrounge up the votes to become Speaker of the House. Ha ha.
- Vladimir Putin is getting his ass handed to him by a ragtag bunch of Slavs.
- The thuggish Jair Bolsonaro lost his reelection bid and fled Brazil for a life of exile in Orlando.
- Democrats retained control of the Senate.
- Boris Johnson was finally turfed out of office in disgrace.
- Nearly half a trillion dollars was approved to fight climate change.
- The "poster boy" of the January 6 insurrection was tossed in prison for five years. Two others were convicted of seditious conspiracy. In all, nearly a thousand people have been arrested and charged for their roles in the rioting. Half of those have either pled guilty or been convicted. More than 100 have received prison sentences.
- The Electoral Count Act passed on a bipartisan basis.
- The Le Pen family lost its eighth consecutive bid for the presidency of France.
- Katie Porter won reelection in California's 47th district against the odious zombie Scott Baugh.
I think it’s pretty clear that Katie Porter should replace Diane Feinstein.
Over time, I agree. However, her skills at bringing actual facts to groups would be missed in the House. I don't know if the Senate is ready for facts.
Over time, I agree.
Over time? Are you serious? What's the wait? Feinstein is manifestly unqualified to serve in the Senate. And I write that as someone who felt sincere admiration and respect for her when she was younger.
My buddy's mother makes $50 per hour working on the computer (Personal Computer). She hasn’t had a job for a long, yet this month she earned $11,500 by working just on her computer for 9 hours every day.
Read this article for more details... https://payathome.blogspot.com/
"The thuggish Jair Bolsonaro lost his reelection bid and fled Brazil for a life of exile in Miami."
Shouldn't the thuggish Donald Trump flee Florida for a life of exile in Rio in order to satisfy some cosmic symmetry?
Elon Musk Becomes First Person Ever To Lose $200 Billion,
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/elon-musk-becomes-first-person-ever-to-lose-200-billion-3652861
Thanks for these! Even more encouraging than the top 10 ways the world could end.
#7 jusst sparked a question: Does anyone know if someone was charged re: Jan 6 and acquitted? I've just thought of that, and nothing comes to mind. Just wondering if anyone has heard of such a case? Clearly those who went to trial were betting on such an outcome.
The only I can think of is some of Rhodes co-conspirators were found not guilty of the most serious sedition charges but they were still found guilty of lesser ones.
2022 politically turned out far better than would have been expected based on projections earlier this fall. Unfortunately my congress person, Sean Maloney, was defeated by some MAGA Nazi shit head, who will represent my district for the next 2 years. I hope a weakened Kevin McCarthy ends up as Speaker after enduring some additional pain, since I always viewed him as an incompetent imbecile who's leadership will likely help damage the GOP in the next 2 years.
Elmo losing $200B also feels good, even though it is only a paper loss. It will feel better when Twitter files and the lenders sell the company for cents on the dollar, locking in Elmo's $25B cash equity loss. Do feel sorry for Twitter's remaining employee's, but the smart folks will leave before the end or have already left.
Kevin's end-of-year listicles never disappoint!
1. You love to see it. I really hope some Democrat rounds up the support of Democrats, and then finds some vulnerable Republican House members to do a cross-over support for Speaker. It'd be hilarious to see McCarthy not get it after all.
Ditto! It would make my year (maybe even my two years) if Hakim Jeffries ended up as Speaker, due to Qpublican Disarray. (We've got to turn a catchy phrase for that one and get the media to adopt it. I am so sick of the "Dems in Disarray!!!" storyline that has to underlie each and every article.)
A quick update: Talking points memo is reporting that it appears Qevin has agreed to permit "motions to vacate", if members will vote for him. That is, any of them, at any time, can call for a vote on who should be the Speaker.
Kind of a "no confidence" vote, but one in which the election of the Speaker of the House is an ongoing item of business, not something that;s done and done at the start of the new Congress.
Josh Marshall (tpm) notes that this puts Mr McCarthy at the mercy of the extremists. He should have added that Democrats could do it, too! Pick a time when lots of Republicans are off blathering on OneAmerican, or fundraising, or golfing at MAL... call for a vote, and they might get a Democratic speaker! (then cancel the motion to vacate clause). Or just disrupt some particularly vicious legislation, like forming a Special Select Committee to investigate Hunter Biden's socks.
2023 could be ... weird. er.
"Vladimir Putin is getting his ass handed to him by a ragtag bunch of Slavs."
(a) According to Stanford we should not be using the word Slav...
(b) Uh, Russian, Slav, Ukrainian???
More seriously it remains unclear to me the truth of the above claim in its most important sense. I think it's been conclusively validated that "mainstream views" as to the progress of the war and who's about to do what are every bit as untrustworthy as you'd expect. What we do know from prior wars (especially WW2, as the most studied) is
- it's PROBABLY all about the economy. That was what did in both Germany and Japan, and it's probably the case that without massive US material help, and again going by economic capability, Germany would have beaten the USSR.
This suggests that in the end Russia will "lose". BUT
- modern wars mostly don't have winners or losers, they just peter out into some sort of more-or-less face-saving declaration of something or other. The details may vary, but it seems highly unlikely that Russia eventually signs a declaration of unconditional surrender, or agrees to any sort of reparations. My guess is that in the end they get to walk away with pretty much the the status quo ante. Which sucks, yeah, but that's the way the world works.
- along the way to that point; well in Europe the war of 1939 was not the war of 1940 which was not the war of 1941 which was not... Things change rapidly when both sides have strong incentives to keep experimenting, and to trying crazy things because how can the result be worse than what's already going on?
At the tame level this means, perhaps, continuing rapid innovation in what drones do and cyber warfare. At the non-tame level, what's the point at which Russia asks "you know these ABC weapons we spent so much money on? honestly, what's the worst that can happen if we try one of them out on the battlefield?"...
"Slav" means something like "fame" or "glory" in the Slavic languages. Why does Stanford have a problem with that?