Now that Republicans control all branches of the federal government, their base is going to expect them to make good on their promises. However, what we're already seeing is that political rhetoric that helps get you elected isn't the same thing as actual reality. It's going to be interesting to see GOP rhetoric collide with the hard, cold facts of reality in the next few months, and nowhere is this more true than on the issue of healthcare reform.

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Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!

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President Obama made some news the other day with another slew of pardons and commutations, adding to his record number as president. Obama has pardoned more people than all presidents back to Truman combined, which is both notable and commendable. Many of these pardons came for Draconian sentences handed out during the worst years of the War On Drugs, when people were routinely sentenced to long prison terms not so much for possessing cocaine but rather for possessing the wrong type of cocaine (when there was a 100-to-1 disparity between crack and powdered cocaine in federal sentencing laws). Obama is doing what he can for the cause of criminal justice reform, but there's one more thing he really should do before he leaves office -- reschedule marijuana so that it is not considered more dangerous than methamphetamine and opium. Contrary to his statements in the past, he can achieve this by directing his Attorney General to sign a piece of paper -- congressional approval is not required at all. So in the midst of correcting some abuses of the Drug War with last-minute pardons, Obama should take this proactive step to change the federal War On Weed as part of his presidential legacy.

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We've got a lot to cover today (including Obama's final press conference), so let's just dive right in and try to get through the rest of the week's news in lightning fashion.

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OK, that's a rather unusual title, but you'll have to wait until the talking points part of the program for us to address it. Call it "the lesson to be learned from the Carrier jobs and Donald Trump," or the silver lining that just might be an effective tool for Democrats in the near future. First, though, we've got to get through the news of the week and handing out our weekly awards.

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So, has everyone had their fill of turkey leftovers? Well, taking a quick look at Donald Trump's cabinet choices should suffice anyone who still craves some leftover turkeys, if you know what we mean.

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A key question now worth contemplating -- right before everyone goes home for Thanksgiving (and the inevitable family political squabbles) -- is how many of the promises Donald Trump made to his supporters can he break before they'll abandon him? Because so far, Trump has been doing some pretty serious backpedaling on some of [...]

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Deficit hawk sightings used to be quite common in Washington, D.C., but early indications are that this bird's about to become a lot rarer. It may even wind up on the endangered species list, in fact. This sort of thing normally happens every time a Republican is in the White House (remember Dick Cheney's infamous "deficits don't matter" line?), but this time around it's already looking like the deficit hawks could disappear entirely from within the Beltway.

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Change is coming soon to the Democratic National Committee. The D.N.C. will elect a new chair soon, and so far the two frontrunners for the position seem to be Representative Keith Ellison and ex-D.N.C. Chair Howard Dean. Both bring interesting skills to the table, but both also have their drawbacks. Who the party elects is going to be crucial to their chances of rebuilding and fielding good candidates for the next few elections. It will also be crucial for the Democrats' chances of getting a clear and strong message out to the public of what, precisely, they stand for. Since Democrats will have no president or congressional majority leaders for the next two years, the D.N.C. chair will become not only the leader of the party, but also likely the most prominent voice in the media as well.

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For the past eight years, America has had an African-American president. Faced with the prospect of a white woman succeeding him, America instead just elected an angry white man as president. Call it the triumph of angry white men everywhere. Millions of Americans are about to find out what it's like to be led by the equivalent of the drunk uncle at the Thanksgiving table who refuses to follow the rules of politeness and political correctness. Was it a backlash against our first black president? Or rampant misogyny towards Hillary Clinton? Or just free-floating rage against a changing culture that is becoming more tolerant and multicultural by the year? It's impossible to accurately say, really. The only thing that can be said for certain is that angry white men are now dominant.

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