Without actually saying his name, President Joe Biden delivered a speech on the anniversary of the failed January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol which directly laid the blame for the atrocity that happened one year ago at Donald Trump's feet. Uncharacteristically (for him), Biden did not pull any punches, did not mince any words, and did not couch his terms in diplomatic language to soften any of the blows. Instead he told the bald truth -- that Trump was responsible for the Big Lie, that the Big Lie was what incited the mob, and that the Big Lie was downright un-American and reprehensible. Biden used one particularly notable phrase multiple times, when he called the violence of January 6th a "dagger at the throat of America" or a "dagger at the throat of our democracy" -- which will probably be the most-remembered line from the whole speech.

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Instead of commenting on today's anniversary of the worst attack on the United States Capitol since 1814 (and the only one ever launched by American citizens) or how Congress is marking the occasion or President Joe Biden's rather forceful speech this morning, instead I am going to run the two columns from last year that expressed my own reactions to the outrage.

And I have only two words to add to all of it:

Never forget.

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Attorney General Merrick Garland gave a speech today to his fellow employees at the Department of Justice. The occasion was to mark tomorrow's anniversary of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and on American democracy. In essence, it was a progress report from the attorney general, and a defense of his own department's actions since. The speech broke no real news, but then it wasn't really designed to. Whether it will change any minds is doubtful, although it might at least give Garland the benefit of the doubt for another few months.

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Welcome back to the second part of our year-end awards column! If you missed it, please feel free to check out [Part 1], too.

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[With apologies to Theodor Geisel
Since he could do this so very well.
I will not try to follow him to the letter
Since he could do it ever-so-much better...]

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Welcome to the first installment of our year-end awards!

We do have to warn readers, right up front, that this is an insanely long article. If you're one of those "tl;dr" types of people, we would strongly advise you to go find a short listicle somewhere else, to read instead. Because this will be a marathon, not a sprint (as always).

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While reviewing the past year's news in preparation for my year-end columns, I came across something interesting, but didn't mark it down for any special mention. It just seemed one more bit of flotsam in the tsunami of idiocy emanating from the Republican Party over the course of a year. But then today the New York Times provided an update on the situation, so I was left thinking: "that was then, this is now," and I decided to juxtapose the two. Call it a textbook example of Republican hypocrisy.

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There will be a significant phone call made in Washington today. It may even be happening as I write this. President Joe Biden and Senator Joe Manchin are going to talk directly to each other in an effort to strike some sort of deal on Biden's Build Back Better agenda -- call it a summit of the Joes.

Manchin, of course, is never at a loss for reasons why he still can't bring himself to publicly support the bill being crafted in the Senate. These reasons shift over time and he's always willing to create new ones if previous issues he has raised have already been addressed. Months ago, he called for a "pause" on the whole process, which must translate to: "let's just not do anything for another year or two," since no matter how much time passes he still seems to feel no sense of urgency whatsoever.

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Even though it is still laughably early to make any such future predictions -- especially when it comes to both the economy and politics -- Joe Biden and the Democrats could actually be poised to have a decent shot in next year's midterm elections.

That may sound shocking to some, mostly because pundits are currently predicting doom and gloom for both Biden's presidency and the midterms. But next November is still a long way away, and things change over time. Including current preconceptions.

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Congress seems to be dispensing with all the other high-profile things that were on its calendar for the end of the year, and it's still only the second week in December. This could bode well for the chances of the Build Back Better bill actually passing the Senate on Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's stated timeline ("before Christmas"). Additionally, the bill seems to have acquired two things that will ultimately help both its passage through Congress and its appeal to the public: a deadline and an excellent "poster child" issue.

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