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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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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Hopefully, as we approach the one-year anniversary of both the most serious attack on our democracy since the Civil War and the most serious attack on the U.S. Capitol since 1814, we may be about to enter a new phase of uncovering exactly what went wrong and holding those responsible to account. I say "may," because at this point nothing is guaranteed.

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'Tis the season.

What season? Well, that depends upon your belief system, doesn't it?

For Christians, it is the season of Advent, the season of Noël; in short, the season of Christmas. For Jews, the season of Hanukkah. For Muslims, the season of Eid.

For others, joining in the mirth has now come to mean celebrating the season of Festivus, a made-up holiday from a made-up television show. And even the Flying Spaghetti Monster adherents are getting in on the fun this year.

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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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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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California Governor Gavin Newsom has decided that the way to fight fire is with some fire of his own. This can be a valuable political tactic at times, to show the opposition party that their own schemes can be used by the other side in unforeseen ways. But doing so always runs the risk of sparking a conflagration that burns everything down. And this could be one of those times.

It's understandable what Newsom is trying to do and the message he is trying to send. It's an important message, and its intended targets are the six conservative justices on the United States Supreme Court. Plainly stated, this message is: "Be very careful what legal tactics you decide are constitutional, because they will be used in ways you do not like or approve of."

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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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I have to begin by apologizing for the trivial nature of today's column. It seems that after posting my annual cute kittens yesterday (to kick off our 2021 Holiday Fundraising Drive) I am now getting in touch with my inner Grinch. Or Scrooge, maybe. Or my inner nitpicky pedant, at the very least.

Because when I read the news this morning, I saw all the media hyperventilation over the arson attack which destroyed what Fox News calls (with capital letters, of course) their "All-American Christmas Tree" outside their New York headquarters. Pretty much every other news organization reported it exactly the same way Fox did -- as the destruction of "a Christmas tree." But this is not correct. It is not true. It is, to coin a phrase, fake news. Because it's pretty easy to tell, when seeing photos or videos of the arson or the aftermath that it is not actually a tree.

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