December 18, 2021

My 2021 "McLaughlin Awards" (Part 1)

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).

We also would like to thank those readers who made nominations this year, as it is always helpful to hear different voices when contemplating who deserves each of these awards. We tried to credit these suggestions, but in the frenzy of writing we probably missed a few (for which we apologize profusely).

Without any further introduction, then (it's long enough as it is), here are our choices for the list of awards first created on the show The McLaughlin Group, which we have long co-opted for our own amusement.



Biggest Winner Of 2021

We could interpret this negatively, by awarding Biggest Winner Of 2021 to the Taliban, or to (as was suggested by reader andygaus) authoritarianism. Or we could have gone rather neutral and given it to infrastructure, after the long wait for "Infrastructure Week" finally paid off.

But instead we're going positive. The Biggest Winners Of 2021 were Unions and (more widely) working Americans in general. The pandemic changed many things about the workplace, most notably the balance of power between employers and employees.

When the COVID-19 recession began, workers were let go in a massive wave. But as we've recovered, the jobs have also come back very quickly -- much more quickly than in previous recoveries. This means it is now a "workers' market" -- with so many unfilled jobs available, employees can afford to be a whole lot choosier about what they accept for employment. This is reflected in the record-breaking amounts of Americans voluntarily quitting jobs in recent months -- people are quitting because they've already got better jobs lined up. And that's a great thing to see.

This has led to employers being forced to compete with each other to entice workers. Fast-food restaurants began offering $15-an-hour wages during the pandemic, just to get people to work for them. Wages in general have gone up -- which is the flip side to inflation that never seems to get reported in the media. Workers are demanding better working conditions and better pay and better benefits, and if their current employer can't provide them, then they leave.

Unions are gaining in strength and growing bolder about striking for better pay and better working conditions. This has happened in a wave across the country, which has not been limited to any one sector or industry. More workplaces -- including the first Starbucks in the country -- are becoming unionized, and support for Unions among the general public has shot way up.

This has reversed a decades-long trend in the dynamics of the workplace, and given workers a lot more power than they have previously had over the past 40 or 50 years. So we'd have to say that the Biggest Winners Of 2021 were both Unions and workers in general. Which is an absolutely fantastic thing to have happened.



Biggest Loser Of 2021

Of course we were tempted to give the Biggest Loser Of 2021 to Donald Trump, but in reality he lost the election in 2020, not this year. Trump did lose his access to Twitter and social media, and he was indeed the sorest loser of the year, but all year long he's had to essentially lie low and lick his wounds. Which is not exactly the same thing as actively losing.

Texas women -- soon to be followed by millions of women in red states across the country -- were also big losers last year, as the state instituted a Draconian abortion law that limited legal abortions in the state to only the first six weeks of pregnancy. This is a shocking loss of constitutional rights in one state, while women in other states still retain these rights -- which is not exactly how things are supposed to work in America. And the Supreme Court looks poised to reduce women's rights even further next year as well, possibly by completely overturning Roe v. Wade.

A strong case could be made for democracy itself (and voting rights in particular) being the Biggest Loser of the year. Republicans have mounted an all-out attack in an effort to retain power at all costs -- even when those costs include the right to a free and fair election. They have followed Donald Trump's Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen down the ugliest and most dangerous rabbit holes imaginable. Next year's midterms are going to be a test case for how much they can get away with in this anti-democratic push, but the real test will come in the 2024 presidential election.

But rather than go generic with this one, we're going specific. The Biggest Loser Of 2021 was the former governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo.

Last year, Cuomo won our award for Best Politician. That's a long way to fall in one year. Back then, we explained that we had decided to give Cuomo the award:

This year, not so much.

Cuomo has been exposed on many fronts as being not living up to the persona he so successfully projected in 2020. First there was the scandal about counting COVID deaths as occurring in hospitals rather than nursing homes (in a very Trumpian way, to hide the real data and the real story from the public). Then came revelations about the book he wrote during the pandemic, which most people saw as a test balloon for running for president some day. A book he wrote, mind you, with the help of state employees during working hours -- something he had specifically promised not to do. Both of those scandals alone might have gotten him impeached and removed from office on their own.

But before that even happened, Cuomo faced a string of allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior towards women working around him and for him. This included an accusation not just of impropriety or harassment, but of actual sexual assault.

Cuomo (with the help of his brother, CNN journalist Chris Cuomo, who also paid a price for his actions) fought back by trying to smear the women accusers, which included leaking the personnel file of one to the media, as well as other dirty tricks. Finally, a scathing report was issued by the state attorney general which might be summed up as: "The women are telling the truth, and Andrew Cuomo is lying through his teeth."

Cuomo tried to hang on even after this bombshell hit. But eventually he was forced to resign, since he was already facing almost guaranteed impeachment and removal from office. But on his way out, he still bitterly insisted he had done nothing wrong and attacked those who accused him of doing so. Talk about not learning his lesson!

The year ended with a decision which will force Cuomo to give up the millions of dollars he made from his book deal, since state employees essentially helped him write it while on the clock.

Lo, how the mighty have fallen. Which is why Andrew Cuomo is our easy choice for Biggest Loser Of 2021.



Best Politician

We are going to go overseas for this one, this year. Because 2021 saw the exit of a consummate politician who was as influential and strong in her country as our very own F.D.R. was here.

Earlier this month, Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel stepped down. This ended an incredible 16-year run leading her country. To put this in context, she first took office in 2005, when George W. Bush was just beginning his second term in office.

During her time in office, Merkel was seen not just as a strong leader of Germany but eventually as the de facto leader of the European Union. That's impressive -- speaking not just for her own country but for all of Western Europe, essentially.

Merkel led an amazing life long before she entered politics. She was raised in East Germany and has a doctorate in quantum physics and worked as a physics researcher in her first career -- not exactly the normal path most politicians take. After Germany reunified, she switched to politics and quickly climbed into the ranks of leadership.

She saw both her own country and Europe through several crises, including the worldwide recession in 2007-08 and the debt crisis in Europe as well (remember Greece?). Germany was the continent's economic powerhouse throughout, which is pretty impressive when you consider Merkel was raised and educated under the repressive communist system of East Germany.

All of this and more qualifies Angela Merkel as a stellar politician. This year, after her incredible 16-year term in office, she decided to step down and make way for someone else. But we have to acknowledge her incredible legacy and her strong leadership not just for her own country but for the entire European Union, and it seemed the most appropriate way to do that was to award her Best Politician of the year.



Worst Politician

This one was hard to choose, since we had a plethora of nominees.

Donald Trump, of course, led the list.

Close behind was the "lunatic caucus" within the House Republicans, which seems to be growing even more unhinged from both propriety and reality by the day. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Lauren Boebert. Paul Gosar. Jim Jordan. Mo Brooks. Devin Nunes. Madison Cawthorn. There are probably a whole bunch more of these names that we've forgotten to add to that shameful list, in fact. Their hallmarks are not just being ultrapartisan but being mean and nasty and downright evil, at times. Call them the spawn of Trump, because he was the one to mainstream being mean and nasty and evil in American politics. Before, these strains always existed, but they were muted and would be denounced within the same party whenever they bubbled up. After Trump, they are celebrated and rewarded for such odious behavior.

Then there was Ted Cruz, who is almost in a "worst of the worst" category by himself. 'Nuff said.

And, as always, there's Mitch McConnell, who actually takes delight in proving how bad a politician he is.

We did consider looking within the Democratic Party in this category, perhaps awarding Worst Politician to Terry McAuliffe for blowing his Virginia governor's race so badly. That was beyond disappointing to the rest of the party.

Then there's always Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Together, these two wasted approximately three-fourths of Joe Biden's first year in office. They endlessly dithered and waffled and refused to strike any sort of deal for so long that months and months and months went by unproductively, while the public at large got the message: "Democrats are incapable of governing, even when they hold all the levers of power in Washington." That was beyond toxic, for the party's brand. They were certainly the worst politicians from the Democratic side of the aisle, without question.

But there was one who stood out, even among the rest of this parade of mediocrity. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy showed all and sundry that he simply does not belong in any position of political leadership, period. He is spineless and cares about nothing, other than increasing his own power. That's it. Nothing else matters to him at all.

People used to talk of the complexities of being a Democratic House leader with the phrase "herding cats." You don't hear that one much any more, with Nancy Pelosi firmly in charge. But over on the Republican side McCarthy has the unenviable task of herding rabid wildcats who are continually tearing everyone and everything apart, just for the sheer joy of destroying things. This would be a very hard task for a strong leader to accomplish, but unfortunately McCarthy is the exact opposite of "a strong leader."

McCarthy's most notable achievement (if you can call it that) is his continued silence in the face of his own party becoming fascists. He started off the year on a fairly good footing, denouncing Trump and the insurrectionists right after the attack on the Capitol. Within a few weeks, however, he made a pilgrimage down to Trump's Florida resort, cap in hand, begging forgiveness from the Dear Leader.

From that point on, McCarthy has been absolutely worthless. Just a complete waste of space. He refuses to police his own ranks, even as they get bolder and bolder about advocating and encouraging political violence. Either he doesn't seen anything wrong with threats of violence becoming the norm in Republican politics, or (much more likely) he is terrified to speak out against any of them because he knows it would put his own leadership job prospects in jeopardy. If he annoys the Trumpian base in any way, he knows he will likely never become speaker of the House -- which has always been his deepest desire. So he silently looks the other way as his own members commit unspeakable acts of political incitement. McCarthy also refuses to condemn any criminal behavior of any type from any Republican, no matter how revolting or disqualifying it is.

For acting with such spinelessness, for acquiescing to the Dear Leader rather than denouncing his coup attempt, for purging honest and righteous Republicans like Liz Cheney who actually have moral principles, for his continued silence in the face of an ever-more-radicalized caucus, Kevin McCarthy was easily the Worst Politician of the year. It would not be overstating the case to call him the Neville Chamberlain of our times, in fact.

Can anyone imagine what the House will be like if he does achieve his dream? If Republicans do flip control of the chamber in next year's midterms and McCarthy manages to take the speaker's chair, we are all in for a very rough ride. He has already proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is absolutely incapable of exerting any sort of control over the worst his party has to offer, so the most radical Republicans would wind up running the place. And that's a frightening thought indeed.



Most Defining Political Moment

There were actually a few defining political moments to choose from this year. Donald Trump getting kicked off Twitter (and other social media) was certainly one of them. All of a sudden, the firehose of bile and idiocy and narcissism just... stopped. And life has been the better for it, ever since. By a long shot.

Joe Biden getting sworn in as president on the 20th of January was also certainly a defining political moment. As was the victory of both Senate Democrats in Georgia, in their runoff elections -- this surprising upset set the stage for the entire rest of the legislative year. Just imagine how different things would have been if Mitch McConnell was still in charge of the Senate, to understand how monumentally definitional this was.

But of course, what happened the day after that upset election was truly the Most Defining Political Moment of the year. And it happened only six days in.

January 6th, 2021 was a historic day, and not in a good sense. More of a Fort Sumter or Pearl Harbor sort of way, in fact.

For the first time since at least the 1800s, the clear loser of an American presidential election refused to concede. The peaceful transfer of power all Americans had so rightly been so proud of just did not take place. Instead, a violent insurrection was attempted.

The sitting president of the United States instigated and cheered on the worst attack on the United States Capitol since 1814, since he thought it was the only means he had left to cling to power. The day is normally a very sleepy one on Capitol Hill and usually only gets a brief mention in that evening's news broadcast. The Electoral College votes are supposed to be ceremoniously certified by Congress, finalizing the election and officially proclaiming who will be president for the next four years -- even though everyone's already known who won the election for months.

This year, however, Donald Trump refused to concede. Although he lost by eight million votes and the exact same Electoral College margin he had claimed was a historic "landslide" for himself back in 2016, Trump insisted that somehow the election had been stolen from him and his voters. He and his supporters filed over 60 lawsuits in an attempt to prove non-existent election fraud, and they lost every single one of them. The Supreme Court didn't even bother to get involved. Trump tried to extort elections officials all over the place (most notably in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Michigan) into somehow changing either the vote or the state's slate of electors, so he could steal the election himself.

None of this worked, either.

So as a last-ditch effort to deny the will of the people, on the morning of January 6th, a mob listened to Trump rant and rave and point them at the Capitol, and then they heeded his ravings and marched over to the seat of American democracy (just as he had instructed them to do) and violently besieged it -- attacking the police who were protecting it, forcing their way in, and roaming through the hallways chanting: "Hang Mike Pence!" They even had a working gallows all ready to go, just outside the Capitol.

Trump gleefully watched live on television, and did nothing. Except cheer them on.

This wasn't just a defining political moment for 2021, it was a defining political moment for a much larger swath of American history. The Republican Party as a whole (with very few exceptions), after first denouncing the attacks, fell into line behind Trump's delusional insistence that somehow, some way (without ever producing a shred of proof because none exists) the election had been stolen. The GOP still hasn't woken up from this dangerous authoritarian and fascistic nightmare, and we're all still paying the price.

Nobody knows how this will end, either in the 2022 midterms or the 2024 presidential election. But American politics shifted on its previously-stable axis on January 6th this year. It was the Most Defining Political Moment of the year, without question.



Turncoat Of The Year

Some might suggest Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for this award, but we've decided they belong elsewhere in this year's list.

Instead, we're going to interpret this award positively this time around the sun. Because we have two turncoats of the year to celebrate: Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

More Republicans than just these two turned away from Trump (and his lunacy) this year to some degree or another, but Cheney and Kinzinger were absolutely consistent in their denunciation of Trump's undermining the American democratic system. They unequivocally said it was all wrong and dangerous and it ran completely counter to what the Republican Party and conservatism used to stand for. Over and over again, in fact. Boldly and without mincing words. Whenever they were asked.

Both Cheney and Kinzinger volunteered to serve on the January 6th Select Committee created by Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats. They have both paid a rather steep political price from their own party because they have done so. But they don't care because they are both of that rare breed of politician who is actually serious about putting country before party -- or even "before one man," never mind "party." They took their sworn oath of office to the United States Constitution seriously, unlike all the rest of the Republicans.

This could wind up being the end of both their political careers, because they have shown so much integrity and fidelity to the truth. So they are certainly more than deserving of being awarded Turncoat Of The Year. A grateful nation thanks them for their noble service.



Most Boring

This one's pretty easy, actually. And unlike in some years, it's a good thing, as Martha Stewart might say.

Most Boring of 2021 was President Joe Biden. And what a relief it has all been!

Here is what we wrote, while reviewing his first address to a joint session of Congress (in his "all but in name" State Of The Union speech): "President Joe Biden has achieved one rather monumental task since he took office, at least to me: in his first 99 days as president, Biden has successfully made the presidency boring again."

Note that "successfully" in there... a truly positive thing, after the four years which preceded it.

Joe Biden has returned the country to some semblance of normalcy.

That sounds pretty boring -- and by strict definition it is -- but it is also a monumental change from the never-ending tsunami of lunacy and drama and tantrums and all the rest of it we had had inflicted upon us by the previous holder of the office.

In 2021, boring was good. It was welcomed in, like an old friend. It was celebrated, in muted tones (naturally).

Joe Biden brought boredom back to Washington. For which we are eternally thankful and grateful. Keep up the good (and boring) work, Joe!



Most Charismatic

You know what? We weren't all that impressed with any particular politician's charisma this year. Maybe it was a side effect of the boring nature of Joe Biden's presidency, or maybe this was just a more-serious year than most. But for whatever reason, we were never blown away by anyone's raw charisma.

Except once. It did actually happen during what could be called a political event, but it didn't come from a politician.

As part of Joe Biden's Inauguration ceremony, the youngest poet to ever appear at such an auspicious event absolutely stole the entire show. Amanda Gorman, age 22, read her poem "The Hill We Climb," and it was beyond charismatic -- it was inspiring. Her performance was flawless, from the striking and beautiful outfit she wore, to her facial expressions and hand gestures while reading, to the recitation itself. It was, in a word, perfect.

And it was exactly what America needed, two weeks after an insurrection was attempted on the very same spot. Here are just a few excerpts from this poetic masterpiece:



Amanda Gorman provided a shining example of all that is good in America, right when we all needed to hear it. Her poetry is nothing short of brilliant (we encourage everyone to read the entire poem, or -- even better -- watch her deliver it at the Inauguration). Gorman was the country's first National Youth Poet Laureate, and it's pretty easy to see why. We certainly expect great things from her in the future, as well. Her charismatic delivery of her brilliant poem was the absolute highlight of the entire day.

Oh, and about that "dream of becoming president" line? She's been saying since 2017 that she's going to run in 2036, so we've all got that to look forward to. For now, among her many other awards, we have to add our own: Most Charismatic of 2021.



Bummest Rap

As usual, there were plenty of bum raps this year, almost all of them coming from the Republican side of the aisle.

There was the whole "the election was stolen" and "Stop the steal!" horsefeathers from Donald Trump, but we've already given that another award here (an even worse one).

There was the laughable projection of denouncing Democrats' supposed "cancel culture," since Republicans are not exactly shy about trying to destroy people they believe have said something beyond the pale. Just ask Liz Cheney about which party loves "cancel culture" the best -- she'll tell you.

Several Democrats came in for some personalized bum raps this year, as usual, including Kamala Harris (for the most insipidly stupid things, such as -- gasp! -- not wearing earbuds), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and the rest of the Squad.

One blanket bum rap emerged during all the endless negotiations over Joe Biden's agenda -- that somehow Biden had become captive of the radical left progressives and he was somehow being forced to accept things that he had never stood for. This was unmitigated moosepoop. The bum rap was usually formulated as: "Joe Biden was elected to bring the country together, as a moderate not a progressive, and he definitely wasn't elected to usher in transformative changes." That might be believable to some, but only if you absolutely ignore everything Biden actually said on the campaign trail and ran on. Which plenty of pundits inside the Beltway seemed fully capable of doing, sadly enough. Biden wasn't taken captive by the progressives -- he had already become a progressive, during the Democratic primary race and all throughout the general election campaign. Go back and check -- it's there for all to see! Biden didn't "cave" to a "progressive agenda," it has been his agenda all along.

But the Bummest Rap of all for Biden was that he was somehow personally responsible for COVID coming back. Granted, he did run on saving the country from the crisis of the pandemic, and for the first half of the year he had gotten out in front with admirable leadership and set goals for himself that seemed unachievable at the time (100 million shots in arms by his first 100 days in office... a goal he then doubled to 200 million shots, and made good on). He predicted in early spring that we'd all be so far back to normal by Independence Day that everyone could enjoy a barbecue with friends and family to celebrate. He made good on that promise too. He did slightly miss his other July 4th target -- getting 70 percent of all adults to at least get their first shot by then -- but only by a couple percentage points. Seeing as how that number was in the low single digits when he took office, getting two-thirds vaccinated in half a year was an astounding achievement on its own, even if he did slightly miss his own mark.

But then things turned sour in a big way. Due to the Republican Party turning a medical emergency into a political wedge issue, not enough people got vaccinated fast enough. The biggest indicator of how high the rate any one American county has hit in vaccinations is how they voted in the last election, in fact. Democrats got vaccinated. Republicans resisted. Because they were fed a steady diet of snake oil and misinformation and outright lies from their political and media and entertainment leaders. A constant diet -- just take a gander at Fox News any day of the week to see this miasmic swamp of ignorance.

So Republicans were fighting hard to make sure that as few of their voters got vaccinated as possible -- actually praising the "freedom" to walk around as a dangerous viral vector -- as some sort of way to "stick it to the libs." And then they have the chutzpah to blame Joe Biden for COVID's persistence? Seriously?

This is beyond the Bummest Rap, it's downright insane. "I'm never getting vaccinated, and it is Joe Biden's fault because he keeps telling me to get vaccinated!" is so nonsensical it belongs in Wonderland with Alice. But that was the supposed rap against Biden.

As we slogged through the times of Delta and are now facing the rise of Omicron, the public has gotten more and more weary of dealing with the pandemic. Those halcyon days of July when we all truly and optimistically believed it was about to all be behind us seem distant now indeed. But to blame Joe Biden for the sheer obstinacy not just of Republican voters but of the entire Republican Party for becoming cheerleaders for COVID is without question the Bummest Rap of 2021.



Fairest Rap

This one is easy, although downright frightening at the same time.

The Fairest Rap of 2021 is that Donald Trump and the Republican Party he successfully hijacked are trying to destroy American democracy and usher in not just authoritarianism but a cult of personality worse than Joseph Stalin, Chairman Mao, or the North Korean dynasty. It is all about Dear Leader Trump, period. First, last, and always.

This is not hyperbole or overstating the case. Trump does not believe in the concept of "one man, one vote," instead he defines it as: "I am the one man, and you can vote for me or we will toss your ballot out."

In a systematic way, the Republican Party is engaged in an effort to overturn not the 2020 presidential election, but the next one, in 2024. They have examined how Trump's attempt to overthrow the will of the voters failed, and they have planned accordingly. All the previously-unheralded officers who conduct and police the American voting system are being purged, for insufficient loyalty to the Dear Leader and his delusions that he won the last election. In their place are being installed party stalwarts who won't blink when asked to "find 11,800 votes" in future elections. They are not just preparing for a trainwreck of democracy, they are actively plotting such an outcome. Republicans have apparently decided that they should be the ones to decide who gets to vote and who doesn't -- or the party that (at the very least) decides which votes are worthy of being counted, and which are not.

That's the worst of it, but it's not limited to scheming to pronounce the "correct" election result, no matter what the actual voters had to say. It goes far beyond this, in even more dangerous ways. The Republican Party is now the party of political violence. State-level Republican Party affiliates openly accept violence and actually celebrate the failed insurrectionists. The insurrectionists are called "political prisoners" and the one who was shot and killed while violently trying to attack members of Congress is now officially a martyr to the cause.

Not getting vaccinated and getting punished for it in any small way is touted as the moral equivalent of Nazis making Jews wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing. Dr. Anthony Fauci is held up as the moral equivalent of Dr. Josef Mengele. The Republican Party has become the party of fear. And insanity.

They've also become the party of COVID. They seem to be actually cheering COVID on, and they're doing everything in their power to assist the spread of a deadly pandemic. They call this massive irresponsibility "freedom," proving that George Orwell was right. Republicans now score political points by fighting back against common sense -- with new laws, with court cases, and bombastically on television every chance they get. This is absolute lunacy, but they don't seem to mind.

Republicans have become the party of the Big Lie. It is now a litmus test within the party, and anyone with the temerity to differ from this delusion is to be immediately hounded out of the GOP. To be a Republican in good standing these days means screaming from the rooftops that Trump is right in his unfounded and lunatic belief that somehow (in some unspecified way, with zero proof) the election was "stolen" from him because eight million more people voted for Joe Biden than him. This is all to set up an election really being stolen, in 2024.

Republicans are now the party of tax cheats, too. They have denounced the idea of boosting the I.R.S. budget to catch more people (rich ones, for the most part) cheating on their taxes. They have brought this on intentionally by slashing the I.R.S. budget for years, to allow people to get away with such criminal behavior. They have -- quite accurately -- defunded the tax police. And now they seem almost proud of standing up for the "right" to cheat on your taxes and defraud the American people. They are the party of lawlessness and disorder, plain and simple.

Republicans have even flipped on one issue that used to be sacred to them -- supporting the military. Now Republicans openly question the loyalty of top brass for all sorts of made-up reasons, most of which boil down to: "You are insufficiently loyal to Dear Leader Trump." Conservatives even speak openly now about just zeroing out the Pentagon's budget to score some imaginary political point. This is an astounding turnaround from where the party has previously been, approximately since the days of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Republicans are now the party of mob threats. Seriously -- when the January 6th committee requested some telecom companies retain records because they possibly would be subpoenaed in the investigation, Kevin McCarthy petulantly (and dangerously) tweeted:



You'll note he didn't cite which "federal law" he thought they would be violating, because such a law does not exist. The companies would be following federal law, preparing records for a possible subpoena -- and then turning such records over when they actually received one. McCarthy is essentially warning corporate America that Republicans will be exacting political revenge if they get back in control. It is exactly the same as if he had said, in the deepest, most threatening mobster's voice imaginable: "Nice telecom you got here... be a shame if anything happened to it...." This is politics reduced to thuggery -- or, to use another word, fascism.

Republicans no longer stand for anything other than fealty to their Dear Leader. They have zero political agenda left, other than "whatever Trump feels like doing." They are the party of hate, now. Here is the best rundown of what Republicans stand for, from a Washington Post article which ran in April:



Since then, they've only added to this list of perceived enemies.

This is all very dangerous stuff. "Explosive" is another apt term for it. Republicans are heading down a road that leads to some very ugly places. Many students of history have already noted the similarities between what is going on right now in America to what happened in Germany in the 1930s, as the Nazis slowly took over all the levers of government and power, until the country was nothing more than a dictatorship. That is a very scary road indeed. And yet, that is exactly where Donald Trump and his sycophantic Republicans want to lead us.

So, yeah -- the Fairest Rap of the year was that Donald Trump and the Republican Party are openly trying to destroy American democracy. Frightening, but true.



Best Comeback

We're not even going to consider Gavin Newsom beating the recall election in California, because we never believed he was in trouble in the first place. He won in a staggering landslide, with a higher margin than even when he was first elected. So as far as we're concerned, there simply was no comeback to be had at all.

We did think about a sort of generic award to Dr. Anthony Fauci and all the medical experts, who suffered grievously under Donald Trump but were freed to tell the truth without political interference once again.

You could interpret this category in a negative way and say the Best Comeback was staged by the Taliban in Afghanistan. After an entire generation of fighting, America withdrew and left the guys in charge who had been in charge before the whole misguided war began. The American-backed government fled or disappeared, and the American-created Afghan military refused to fight. So much for nation-building.

The idea of a congressional commission to investigate January 6th did indeed make a necessary comeback. The original plan was to have a bipartisan commission, which was passed in the House but which (shamefully) Senate Republicans voted down. So Nancy Pelosi did what she could and created a "select committee" instead. Originally she invited Kevin McCarthy to name sober-minded Republicans to the panel, but instead he named blowhards and conspiracy-theorists and other lunatics. Pelosi nixed these and invited the only two Republicans who still are able to put country before party: Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. So that was a pretty well-handled comeback.

If we were going to award this purely on political grounds, we would have to hand the award to both newly-minted senators from Georgia, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. These two pulled off an absolutely stunning upset, in the runoff race that happened a day before the insurrection. Virtually nobody gave them a chance of winning, and yet Georgia Democrats turned out in droves to make sure that they did. It was easily the biggest electoral upset of the year, and it handed control of the Senate to the Democrats instead of keeping it in Mitch McConnell's patented "Grim Reaper" death grip.

But instead, we almost want to change the category's label to "Worst Comeback," because it is hard to use the word "best" in this regard. But we have to admit, sadly, that COVID-19 had the Best Comeback of the year.

Think about where we all were on Independence Day. President Biden's optimism had been vindicated, as Americans celebrated with barbecues across the land -- just as Biden had promised. The rate of new daily infections had dropped to the point where everyone truly believed the pandemic was behind us and normal life was all we had to look forward to.

And then came Delta.

The daily numbers spiked back up into six-digit territory again and pandemic restrictions began making a reappearance. This was psychologically crushing to many of us. To have the Promised Land dangled so close in front of our eyes only to see it snatched away in tragic fashion was demoralizing in the extreme.

So while we still cringe at the first word of the category, we have to admit in all honesty that COVID-19 had the Best Comeback of 2021. Hopefully it won't even be in the running for this award next year, that's all we can say at this point. Hopefully.



Most Original Thinker

We did hear one nomination for "billionaires who decided to go into space on their own," but we're finding it hard to hand out any sort of award for the concept of: "I have so much money I think I'll do something fun that only sovereign nations used to be able to afford," just on general principles.

One bit of astoundingly original thinking happened this year up in Washington state, where in an effort to entice underserved communities to get vaccinated, they decided to hand out free marijuana joints to anyone who would get their shot. The governor even personally participated (in a photo-op sort of way) by handing a few joints out himself. This led us to write what was probably our most amusing column of the year (most amusing to write, in any case...).

But instead we have to hand the Most Original Thinker award to Joe Biden. Now, we're not entirely sure this one is going to take root and become the new norm or not (it's too early to tell... perhaps after his Build Back Better bill passes... if it ever does, that is...). But when he first deployed it, it was just astoundingly brilliant and it turned the tables on a media talking point that deserved to be shot down.

Because Joe Biden redefined the term "bipartisan." After his American Rescue Plan Act passed (Biden's first legislative achievement as president, the "COVID relief" bill), the media was quick to minimalize the victory by pointing out it was a purely partisan vote -- no Republican in Congress voted for it, so the votes had happened along purely partisan lines. As far as the media was concerned, this meant it "was not bipartisan."

The media tried to castigate Biden for not following through on his campaign promises to bring unity back to the country and make Washington work once again in true bipartisan fashion.

Biden, rather than going into a defensive crouch over the accusation, instead went on offense instead. He rejected the media's definition entirely, and instead redefined bipartisan as: "what a majority of the people overwhelmingly support." He was on very solid ground -- all the various pieces of the American Rescue Plan were widely (even "wildly" ) popular with the voters -- polling at 60-plus or even above 70 percent approval. That includes a lot of Republican voters, obviously. Which Biden pointed out, every time he was asked the question.

By redefining bipartisan in this fashion, Biden turned the tables on the media's framing of the issue. He wasn't the one who hadn't achieved bipartisanship -- in fact, he had. The people were with him. It was instead the Republican politicians in Congress who refused to be bipartisan, because even when their own voters supported a bill, they refused to vote for it for purely partisan reasons.

Again, it is simply too early to tell if this redefinition will stick. Or ever be adopted by any other politician after Biden. It could go either way, really. The meme is in flux, one might say. We'll have to see, with all the rhetoric that will get deployed if and when Biden gets his Build Back Better bill through Congress -- once again, with only Democratic votes (one assumes).

If the media try the same framing and Biden rejects it once again, the new definition might get a lot more traction and even be picked up by the more liberal members of the mainstream media. Or perhaps they'll just begrudgingly use it until Biden is out of office, and then revert to their older definition. It's really too soon to tell.

But for the moment -- and for 2021 -- Joe Biden was the Most Original Thinker by completely and rather brilliantly changing the meaning of a political term that was being used against him.



Most Stagnant Thinker

This one is about to become critically important very soon. It really has been all year, but the media spotlight is turning back on it once again.

The two Most Stagnant Thinkers of the year were Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, for their obstinate defense of the filibuster. Neither one of them has budged one inch on the issue all year long, and in fact they proudly wrote opinion pieces for newspapers (which we refuse to link to here) where they tried to make their obstinacy something somehow noble and high-minded. Spoiler alert: it's not.

The most maddening argument they have made is that they are "protecting the rights of the minority in the Senate." Well, maybe, but in doing so they are actively holding the coat of the Republican Party as it proceeds to attack the constitutional rights of actual minorities in this country -- by passing Draconian laws specifically designed to make it harder for minority voters to participate in elections.

This has nothing to do with all the Republican nonsense about "voter fraud," by the way. For instance, they're passing laws (or attempting to) to limit Sunday voting. This is an attack on the "Souls To The Polls" program, where Black churches provide transportation to their parishioners to get them to go vote right after church. They're passing laws making it illegal to expand voting hours -- which had made it much easier for swing-shift workers (many of them minorities) to vote. They're making it illegal for people to pass out water to people waiting in line to vote -- even though the only precincts where people wait in line for hours are in poor districts chock full of minorities. And this is just a random sampling of the cruel and targeted nature of these new laws.

To Manchin and Sinema, it is more important to protect the rights of Republicans in the Senate than it is to protect the rights of actual minorities to vote, plain and simple. Which other Democrats have not exactly been shy about pointing out. That and the fact that Republicans are going to have absolutely no compunction about ignoring the filibuster rules whenever they see fit, should they retake control of the chamber after the midterms.

It is downright depressing to consider how much of Joe Biden's agenda might have already passed this year if the filibuster had been either tossed out entirely or seriously reformed by now. But none of that matters to Sinema and Manchin.

As far as they are concerned, forcing the Senate to craft bipartisan bills means the legislation will be stronger and better for the country, and endure more than partisan laws which might be overturned abruptly after a post-election shift in power. But this is hogwash, really, since the American public really does not care which senator voted for which law -- they are only really concerned with the results. If a new law is popular enough, then it will stand on its own and the opposition party will be hard-pressed to repeal it after a power shift, because too many of their own voters will support it (see: Obamacare). Again -- no matter who voted for it originally. Legislation, after it passes, stands or falls on its own merits. But this fact is absolutely ignored by Manchin and Sinema in their arguments.

Which is why, without a shadow of a doubt, the two are unquestionably the Most Stagnant Thinkers in their party, in the Senate, and in Washington right now.



Best Photo Op

Maybe we're biased since we ran our first-ever product endorsement column on the subject earlier this year. Anything's possible!

But to us, there simply was no better photo opportunity last year than seeing Bernie Sanders all bundled up (including his adorable homemade mittens) in the audience for Biden's Inauguration.

Which is why, of course, we had to pre-order our own bobblehead when we heard they were going to be created:



They're still available for a reasonable price, and Bernie's still at the top of the site's banner, proving it had to have been one of their best-sellers of the year. Our endorsement still stands -- everyone should have a Bobblehead Inauguration Bernie!

And while we're at it, we're awarding the moment the Best Photo Op of the year. Call us biased, we don't care....



Worst Photo Op

Sadly, there were more than a few to choose from in the Worst Photo Op category. We could have gone with something at least semi-amusing such as Donald Trump giving a speech where it certainly appeared his pants were on backwards.

Or Ted Cruz strolling through an airport after fleeing his state in the middle of a deadly emergency. While Texans froze to death due to the power being off (due to their lightly-regulated private power grid not being able to handle a winter storm), Ted packed his family up and flew to the sunny beaches of Cancun, Mexico. When he was caught in this monstrously inhuman ad hoc vacation, he blamed the whole thing on his young daughters. Because he is precisely that species of schmuck.

More seriously, there was the horrific spectacle of January 6th, watching the United States Capitol fall to a murderous mob of insurrectionists. But we consider that to be a level above just "photo op," even if the television, photos, and security videos were all some of the worst ever seen in America.

There were really only two contenders for the award, however. We must note that we did consider the anime video of a Republican House member actually killing one of his peers and violently attacking with swords the president of the United States to be abhorrent, but didn't really consider it a "photo op" per se. Maybe that's splitting hairs, which is why we felt the need to mention it here.

Our runner-up for the year was the Christmas card photos from more than one Republican House member (we refuse to even mention their names or link to the photos) with the whole family including young children all smiling broadly as they brandished rifles, some of them assault weapons. Aren't these the sort of folks who should really be wearing a "WWJD" bracelet? You would think so, but apparently not. Talk about not understanding the meaning of the holiday!

But sadly even as bad as that was, it still wasn't the worst. The Worst Photo Op of the year was watching Afghans desperately climbing on the outside of a military transport plane at Kabul's airport only to have the plane take off. Most of them jumped or fell off before it was too late, but we all saw videos of people falling from the sky to their deaths immediately after takeoff.

This video will go down in history right next to the helicopters on the roof of the United States embassy in Saigon, as we beat a retreat from another failed war, half a century ago.

Watching desperate Afghans fall to their death was obviously the Worst Photo Op of the year.



Enough Already!

We've got quite a list for this category, as always. So here goes:

Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema -- Enough Already!

Republicans calling themselves the "law and order party" while voting against honoring the cops who protected them on January 6th and every other day of the year too -- Enough Already!

The stupidity of some of the culture war issues that the GOP jumps on -- like the publisher of Dr. Seuss deciding on their own to stop publishing a few of his lesser-known books, or starting a movement to demonize Big Bird -- Enough Already!

Democrats saying "Latinx" -- Enough Already!

Governors instituting rules to combat the pandemic's spread -- and then getting caught disobeying their own rules -- Enough Already!

Andrew Cuomo and his brother Chris too -- Enough Already!

Marjorie Taylor Greene and all the rest of the Mean Girls (and Boys) Squad in the Republican House -- Enough Already!

Anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers -- Enough Already!

...And finally, one we can all get behind:

COVID-19 -- Enough Already!



Worst Lie

This one is easy, really.

There were other nominees, such as "Critical Race Theory is being taught in all K-12 schools across America," which is just not even remotely true.

Or, for sheer offensiveness, the idea that restricting non-vaccinated people in any way, shape, or form was somehow akin to the Nazis making Jews wear yellow Stars of David on their clothing to identify them. Or that Anthony Fauci was somehow as evil as Dr. Mengele. These were not just offensive lies, but downright abhorrent false equivalencies, but it didn't stop Republicans from making them.

But the Worst Lie was also the biggest. Driven by a man who uttered over 30,000 lies while in office, the Big Lie from Donald Trump that the election had been somehow "stolen" from him (with absolutely zero evidence to back such a claim up) was easily the worst of the year.

This was a lie that spread outward like ripples from a fat turd dropping into a toilet. Sorry for the graphic imagery, but it truly was that odious.

Beyond odious, it was downright dangerous and continues to be, right up to the very moment.

Trump is just never going to give up on this delusion. He just isn't. To do so would be to admit he's the biggest loser in American politics since George H. W. Bush lost his re-election race. Or even since Jimmy Carter. Which Trump refuses to admit as any sort of reality, no matter how real it may be to the rest of us.

Trump's Big Lie is what drove the whole "let's conduct meaningless and laughably-unprofessional 'audits' of the vote, for the sixth or seventh time" movement. It is where the entire fiction of "voter fraud" came from which spurred so many rollbacks both in the ease of voting and in voting rights in Republican states. It is what has led to a putsch among the people responsible for conducting elections and counting the votes in multiple key states -- people who used to be dedicated to doing their job honestly and with integrity, who are now being replaced by partisan hacks who will do anything Trump tells them to.

As we said: dangerous stuff.

Trump's Big Lie is undermining American democracy. All the ripples which flowed outward from that initial kerplunk are still poisoning the entire country, and will continue to for some time to come.

Which is why Trump's Big Lie was also -- without a shadow of a doubt -- the Worst Lie of the year as well.



Capitalist Of The Year

We're going to use the term "capitalist" here, because we would no doubt be accused of sexism if we used the proper term for what she has now become. Ahem.

Senator Kyrsten Sinema is our Capitalist Of The Year, which is not in any sort of way a positive thing.

Before becoming a United States senator, Sinema was astonishingly progressive. One might have called her radical, even. She campaigned as a staunch progressive voice, in fact, during her 2018 campaign.

But then she won her election. And ever since, she's been most concerned with raking in as much donor money as is humanly possible. In order to further this goal, she will change any previously-held position if enough rich people and corporations donate enough money to her. She sells herself out, plain and simple.

Take, for example, the cost of prescription drugs. In 2018, during her campaign, she tweeted: "We need to make health care more affordable, lower prescription drug prices, and fix the problems in the system -- not go back to letting insurance companies call all the shots."

This year, almost singlehandedly, Sinema torpedoed any sort of meaningful and wide-reaching prescription drug pricing reform. Democrats in the House and Senate had come up with a plan which would force the drug companies to rein in their rapacious greed, and Sinema refused to even consider it. She initially wanted zero drug pricing reform at all, but then slightly backed down and allowed the absolute minimum effort to make it into the draft of the Build Back Better bill. Why this change in heart? Well, perhaps this headline explains things a bit: "Big Pharma, Medical Firms Donated $750K To Kyrsten Sinema -- Then She Opposed The Drug Bill."

Again, we are restraining ourselves from calling this activity by its proper title, so as to not trigger or offend anyone.

Or take the Trump tax cuts. Once again, Sinema campaigned on rolling back all the enormous tax giveaways to the ultrawealthy when she was still running for the Senate, but now that she's ensconced within, she has changed her tune -- after ultrawealthy donors started giving her enormous sums of campaign cash to play with. She -- again, singlehandedly -- demanded that none of Joe Biden's agenda be paid for by rolling back any of the Trump tax cuts, even those that only went to millionaires and billionaires. The sanctity of these folks paying little-to-nothing in federal taxes suddenly became her new position. And because Democrats only control the Senate by a 51-50 margin, if she withheld her vote no bill would pass.

So, yeah, with as much snark as is humanly possible to attach to it, we have to admit that Kyrsten Sinema is our Capitalist Of The Year. She knows full well the value of her vote, and she is willing to sell it to the highest bidder, period.

You can call her any label you like, if you don't like "capitalist." We know the one we'd go with, but cannot utter it in polite company, sorry.



Honorable Mention

First and foremost: an Honorable Mention for all the first responders, doctors, nurses, and other healthcare and front-line workers who have been dealing with the grim reality of this deadly pandemic since the very beginning. The public reads the statistics of the numbers of daily deaths and it's all rather abstract. Not to these people -- they see the ravages of COVID on an up-close and very personal daily basis, and they all deserve our thanks for their tireless efforts.

All the Democrats (except for Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema) who all year long proved that the Democratic Party can unite around a common agenda. If you set Sinema and Manchin aside, the rest of the Democrats have had minor squabbles (between corporatists and progressives, mostly) but in the end have hammered out deals and moved forward. Biden got the first legislative victory -- the American Rescue Plan -- passed in record time, which simply wouldn't have been possible without party unity.

Let's see... who else?

First Lady Jill Biden, for being so classy all around. What a remarkable difference, eh?

Representative Maxine Waters, for telling Jim Jordan to "shut your mouth" during a House committee hearing. Jordan really needs to be told this on a daily basis, in actual fact.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, for dropping her namesake "Psaki bombs" on all the ridiculous questions she gets asked from rightwing media types.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, for weighing in rather forcefully on the fights over pandemic preparedness. Here's what he had to say:



Joe Biden, for declaring not just Columbus Day this year, but also Indigenous Peoples' Day. Also for the congressional Democrats who declared Juneteenth to be a national holiday in record time.

Chris Wallace, for being the only sane voice on Fox News.

And finally, for high school cheerleader Brandi Levy, who won a Supreme Court case because her school retaliated against her for writing a very scathing social media post (with plenty of F-words). The First Amendment is protected by people like this who stand up for their right to speak freely, so we all owe Levi our thanks.



Person Of The Year

And finally, our pick for Person Of The Year (and no, we didn't even consider Elon Musk... sorry, Time magazine).

This was a very hard call for us. We had two finalists, one much more positive than the other.

Our runner-up for Person Of The Year was Liz Cheney. We even wrote an article this year titled: "In Praise Of Liz Cheney." Which certainly doesn't happen every year -- us heaping praise on a Republican.

Cheney showed us all what Republicans can be, if they'd only try. She knows right from wrong when she sees it, and she saw Donald Trump instigate an attack on the Capitol and American democracy in an attempted coup, and she didn't hesitate to denounce it -- and Trump -- in the most explicit terms imaginable.

She voted to impeach him (in his second impeachment), she voted for the January 6th independent committee and she now sits on the January 6th Select Committee with Adam Kinzinger as the only other Republican brave enough to stand up for truth instead of Trump's endless lying.

She was unceremoniously stripped of her leadership position within the Republican Caucus for doing so. The Republican Party of Wyoming voted to expel her from their ranks. She already has a primary candidate who has been endorsed by Trump. She is paying a very high political price for her insistence on the truth, and her rock-hard belief that the Republican Party can be better than just a Trump cult. So we really wanted to salute her for her brave stand.

Unfortunately, we have another candidate. As we read back over the year, we were downright astonished at how often we had written about the machinations this man put the country through. He dominated the news coverage all year long, in fact. He has been called "president" and even "emperor" in sullen acknowledgement of his newfound importance.

So with a very heavy heart indeed -- but keeping to the logic that the award should go to the most influential person, not the best person -- we have to reluctantly award Person Of The Year to none other than Senator Joe Manchin.

In fact, we're so certain that everyone already knows why this makes perfect sense that we're not even going to explain our choice at all. He was the person Washington revolved around all year long, let's just leave it at that.



[See you next Thursday, for the conclusion of our 2021 awards!]

-- Chris Weigant



If you're interested in traveling down Memory Lane, here are all the previous years of this awards column:



Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant

December 11, 2021

Friday Talking Points -- The Hidden Biden Boom

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.

We're tempted to dust off the Clinton-era slogan: "It's the economy, Stupid," but it wouldn't cover the entire story for 2022. This time around, it would have to be: "It's the economy and the pandemic, Stupid!" Where we as a nation are next summer (and to a lesser extent, where the rest of the world is) when it comes to COVID-19 is still completely unknown. Will it have faded into being merely an annoying epidemic instead of a deadly pandemic? Will milder variants dominate and drive out the more-deadly strains (such as Delta)? Will we continue to increase the percent of vaccinated Americans and fully-boosted Americans until we truly reach herd immunity? Nobody really knows.

Joe Biden was elected for many reasons, but one big one was to provide a healthy dose of sanity to the country's response to a deadly virus. It is no coincidence that the last time his job approval poll numbers were impressive was this past summer, in the brief period where it seemed as if COVID was on the run and life had largely returned to normal. Then came Delta. And with it, a return to the exhaustion and frustration everyone has been feeling since the pandemic began. "When will it be over?" Americans wonder, wistfully. Until people feel optimistic that we have indeed reached some sort of "end of the road" with COVID, Biden is likely to continue to pay a political price.

On the economy, however, things look a lot brighter in general. The one thing dragging Biden down at the moment is inflation -- everything costs more, including the big two: gasoline and food. That hits everyone's pocketbook in a very tangible way. And Republicans have already leapt to fan these flames, in an effort to distract everyone from all the good economic news (an effort which, at this point, has largely succeeded). The White House is trying to push back by "working the refs" in the media, which is indeed a worthwhile thing to attempt. As the Washington Post pointed out recently, press coverage of Biden has at times been even more negative than the media's coverage of Trump in the preceding year (while Trump was completely failing to lead the country through a deadly pandemic). If the media would cover the good news and the bad on the economy with equal weight, people would feel a lot better about where the country finds itself right now -- at least that's the case that the White House is making.

They've got solid data to back them up on this, though. The price of gas is already beginning to come down, and experts predict it'll fall even further next year. That will help enormously, in terms of how people feel about the current economic picture. The supply-chain problems are also slowly improving, so that will also likely go away as a political issue early next year.

But if you take a look at just about any other part of the economy, the news is not just good, it is downright fantastic. Here are some stats to sink your teeth into, first from Politico:

More of this excellent news is itemized in Washington Monthly (emphasis in original):



Got all of that? Not a single piece of bad news to be found, outside of inflation. And if the White House is right about predicting that inflation will ease soon, then by next summer people are going to be noticing this good news much more than the inflationary blip.

Job openings are everywhere. More unemployed people found work in 2021 than during the first year of any other president in history. Wages are rising faster than they have in a decade, and are expected to rise even further next year (3.9 percent is the current prediction). Employers are competing with one another for workers, which gives workers bargaining power they haven't had in a very long while. Unemployment is almost down to the same rate it was before COVID. Economic growth is astoundingly good and will also be extremely good next year. People have more money in their pockets even after adjusting for inflation. Savings rates are way up. We are in the midst of the fastest economic recovery in American history, in actual fact.

These are all underlying conditions which normally indicate how the public is feeling about whatever party is in charge in Washington. How people feel about the economy either lifts or sinks political parties' chances in elections, pretty much no matter what else is happening at the time. And if this economic boom continues, eventually public perception of Biden and the Democrats may recover just as fast as the economy has. Such shifts in perception lag reality, sometimes by two or three months, so this won't happen until at least early 2022. But if inflation recedes, by February or March the underlying good economic picture may come to dominate how people see their own financial future a lot more. Call it the (so-far) "hidden Biden boom," perhaps.

In other political news, Congress is actually getting some things done (gasp!). The Pentagon budget is moving towards President Biden's desk, the debt ceiling fight has been successfully defused and should pass the Senate next week, and the Build Back Better bill is being vetted by the Senate parliamentarian. Next week should continue this streak of Congress doing the job they got send to Washington to do, although the biggest of these efforts (Build Back Better) is, as always, going to be dependent on the whims of Joe Manchin. (We wrote about two positive developments in the way Democrats are selling this bill earlier this week, if anyone's interested into a deeper dive on the subject.)

In more sobering news, President Joe Biden gave a very moving eulogy today at the National Cathedral for Bob Dole, a man he knew and worked with during his time in the U.S. Senate.

And in the most sobering news of all, Republicans continue to plot their next coup attempt right out in the open for all to see -- except that now the media is slowly waking up from its long nap and actually reporting on all the frightening things the GOP is doing to ensure that they can override the will of the voters in the next presidential election.

Speaking of massive contempt for the rule of law, Donald Trump is about to face a subpoena in New York on one of the investigations into his company's rampant tax and banking fraud, which is certainly interesting news to hear. Also, contempt of Congress charges could be voted on soon for two of Trump's minions who were in the middle of the January 6th insurrection plot, so there's that to look forward to as well.

Because it is the season, whackadoodle Republicans are celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace by posing (with their young children taking part, naturallly) while brandishing deadly weapons. None of that wimpy "turn the other cheek" here, one assumes!

A homeless man with mental problems has been arrested for allegedly torching the Christmas-tree-shaped display (it's [inot a tree], dammit!) outside the Fox News headquarters in New York City. No word on whether any chestnuts were toasted on the roaring fire which resulted. Jimmy Kimmel had perhaps the funniest comment on the whole thing, announcing: "The fire is believed to have started after Fox News's pants caught on fire." Kimmel also picked up on the fact that the display was not actually a tree: "I've seen trees -- this is not one of them. That is a hollow structure that sort of resembles a tree, in the same way Tucker Carlson is a hollow structure that sort of resembles a human."

Speaking of late-night comics, tune in to Jimmy Fallon on NBC tonight if you want to see Joe Biden's first late-night appearance since he took office.





For both taking action and making his case to the public in a very clear way this week, Adam Schiff wins our Most Important Democrat Of The Week award.

Although little-noticed in the media, Schiff managed to pass a very important bill through the House this week, one that would reform a lot of the weak spots in our democracy. Most of these weak spots were either exploited or just shredded into tatters by Donald Trump and his administration. No case can be intelligently made that these reforms are not necessary, because Trump is all the proof anyone needs.

Which Schiff pointed out, in an opinion piece in the Washington Post titled: "Congress Must Act To Protect Democracy From Presidential Abuse, Just Like It Did After Nixon." In Schiff's own words:



Schiff is not mincing any words. Our democracy is what is at stake here. Even if Donald Trump is never re-elected, the weaknesses in our current system will still be there for any Trumpian clone to exploit at will -- unless Congress acts now. There is a window of opportunity for reform that is going to close very soon, as the memory of all these abuses of power fades from the public mind.

Actually passing the bill is likely going to require filibuster reform in the Senate, though, since the GOP could care less about abuses of power as long as they think Trump will be the one doing such things. Their fear of Trump's wrath is going to keep them from doing the right thing, so Schiff's plea in his final paragraph is going to go unheeded by most Republican senators (while one or two might be convinced to act, that is far short of the ten that would be needed, with no filibuster reform).

Schiff both acted (by getting the bill passed) and was his own cheerleader for this effort this week. Both were impressive, we must say. Which is why he's the clear winner of this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week.

[Congratulate Representative Adam Schiff on his House contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]





This one was pretty easy, because two Democrats in the Senate broke ranks and voted for a bill that is never going to become law. It was a political stunt, and both men obviously felt that doing so would boost their bona fides back home with rural voters. Even so, there are plenty of other Democrats who could also have done so for the same reason, but they all voted against the measure.

Senators Joe Manchin and Jon Tester, from West Virginia and Montana (respectively), voted with all the Republicans to pass a bill banning Joe Biden from implementing vaccine mandates. Biden's efforts have already been tied up in the courts and wouldn't have taken effect until next year anyway, so this bill was completely meaningless, as things stand now.

It has zero chance of becoming law. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is never going to bring it up for a vote, and even if by some strange miracle it did pass the House, Joe Biden is certainly going to veto it. And 52 votes in the Senate are nowhere near the amount needed to overturn such a veto.

So the entire thing was political posturing. And it wouldn't have made anywhere near as big a media splash if the bill had gone down to defeat (as it would have if Tester and Manchin hadn't crossed the aisle). So for aiding and abetting this political theater staged by the GOP, both senators are our Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week winners.

[Contact Senator Joe Manchin on his Senate contact page, and Senator Jon Tester on his Senate contact page, to let them know what you think of their actions.]




Volume 644 (12/10//21)

Before we begin, a rather important program note is necessary. This will be the final Friday Talking Points column of the year. For the next two Fridays, we will instead be running our year-end awards columns, so be sure to tune in for them (and feel free to make your own nominations for the first of these). Then the final Friday of the year is New Year's Eve, so we'll be as far from the keyboard as you can imagine. Regular Friday Talking Points columns will resume on January 7th in the new year, so we'll see you back here then. And while we've got your attention, if you enjoy reading these Friday columns throughout the year, please consider donating to our year-end fundraising effort, to keep the lights on for all of 2022. Thanks!



The good times are rolling

Democrats need to push back on the current singular focus on inflation. The Biden White House already realizes this, but it would help if a few other Democrats started beating this drum.

"You know, I hear all kinds of doom and gloom from Republicans -- and, sadly, the media -- over the state of the economy. OK, sure, inflation is a problem right now because the economy is roaring back so quickly after the COVID recession that it has driven prices up. But that's a temporary problem that will ease soon. But there is also plenty of good news, considering where we were a year or two years ago. Consider: we just had the best week of new unemployment claims since 1969. Best number in 52 years, folks! We've seen the strongest performance on growth, jobs, and income in decades. Growth is now at an astounding 7.8 percent, and is projected to be at 3.8 percent next year. From 2000 to 2019, this number never even hit 3.0 percent, just so you understand how rare this is. The stock market continues to hit new highs on a regular basis. For the first 10 months of this year, disposable income grew by 3 percent -- even after inflation is taken into account. In the same period, wages and salaries grew 2.4 percent -- after inflation. Almost 6 million Americans have returned to work this year -- a number far higher than any other first-year president has ever seen. People are quitting jobs in record numbers because so many better jobs are available. Unemployment was at 6.3 percent when Joe Biden became president. It has fallen to 4.2 percent now, and it continues to drop. Unemployment fell by a third over 11 months. After the Great Recession, it took six whole years for that to become true. We are in the fastest recovery America has ever seen, and it's not over yet. Once inflation dampens down, people are going to realize the economy is truly stronger than ever, on President Biden's watch."



Pass Build Back Better to fight inflation

Democrats should demagogue on the inflation issue, since Republicans certainly never worry about the accuracy of any of their claims, right?

"Nobel-winning economists have publicly said that the best thing we could do to fight inflation right now would be to immediately pass the Build Back Better plan and put it on Joe Biden's desk. Investing in the human infrastructure of this country means investing in families and parents and workers and children and seniors. It will dramatically reduce expenses for tens of millions of families. While Republicans make political hay out of families having to pay more for gas and food, they absolutely refuse to help families pay for child care and education -- even though that would help family budgets enormously. And, at the same time, this would fight inflation and get prices back under control. Want to do something about inflation? Pass Build Back Better. Or ask Republicans what they'd do -- because for all the noise they're making, they have absolutely no answer to that question at all."



Reduce family costs

This is a big arrow in the Democratic quiver, because it is so easy for voters to see how they could personally benefit.

"I see the Republicans have come up with yet another of their insipid political phrases to explain why they are so opposed to giving hardworking American parents a break. They have decided that all the benefits of the Build Back Better plan are somehow a 'toddler takeover' by the federal government. Yep, that's really what Mitch McConnell is calling it. They're hoping you only hear that, and never hear what the bill would actually do for you. For every parent out there paying an exorbitant amount for child care, this bill would cap your expenses at seven percent of your income. Figure out what you make, multiply it by seven percent, and that's all you'll have to pay for child care for the whole year. That's some sort of 'toddler takeover'? Seriously? And that's not to mention the two years of free preschool all American children will be entitled to -- extending the one year they currently now get to three. That is going to be welcomed by American families, because that is going to save working moms and dads thousands of dollars of child care costs. Democrats want to make the largest investment in early child care and education in all of American history, to help parents get back to work. A full 70 percent of voters -- including a majority of Republican voters -- think this is precisely what Congress should do now. Republican politicians, however, not only want to invest zero in America's children, they're trying to scare everyone into thinking two free years of preschool and caps on child care costs are somehow bad things. You know what I say? Good luck selling that, Mitch."



A shot across Manchin's bow

That's a particularly apt metaphor, since Manchin lives (while he's in Washington) on an expensive houseboat/yacht.

"If Congress doesn't pass the Build Back Better plan by the end of this month, the I.R.S. has said that January's Child Tax Credit checks -- $300 per child -- will not be able to go out. What this would mean, according to the experts, is that 9.9 million children would slip below the poverty line once again. That would happen next month. This has been the most successful program in American history to lift children up from food scarcity and poverty. It has already been proven to have dramatically decreased child poverty all over the country. We simply do not have the time for Senator Joe Manchin's dithering any more. We are now facing a hard deadline. Build Back Better needs to pass by December 28th or almost 10 million American children will be at risk of slipping back into poverty. The need for action is now. America's families can't wait."



You tell them, Dan!

Where oh where were all the "Republicans In Disarray" headlines? Your guess is as good as ours....

"Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Republican from Texas, had some rather harsh words for some members of his own party this week. While speaking to a gathering of conservatives, Crenshaw warned of 'grifters in our midst... in the conservative movement.' He accused them of spouting 'lie after lie after lie,' and in case anyone had any doubts about who he was referring to, he made it plain: 'everybody in the Freedom Caucus -- all of them.' He then told us what he really felt about the two types of Republicans in Washington: 'there's performance artists, [and then] there's legislators.' Performance artists, he warned: '...get all the attention. They're the ones you think are more conservative because they know how to say slogans real well. They know how to recite the lines that they know our voters want to hear.' Couldn't have put it better myself, Dan, so thanks for that!"



Fightin' words down in Georgia

This comes from a Georgia newspaper, we hasten to point out.

"We're certainly stocking up on popcorn to watch the upcoming fight between the Republican governor of Georgia and his Republican primary challenger. The only real ideological difference between these two is that one of them followed the law and refused to aid and abet Donald Trump's attempted voter fraud, and the other one thinks that Trump should have been anointed president no matter what Georgia voters had to say. This is going to be a bitter and vicious fight, we're sure. How do we know this? Because a veteran GOP strategist used the ultimate metaphor in Georgia politics to describe what is about to take place: '[General William Tecumseh] Sherman left more standing than this primary will.' Can't get much worse than that, in Georgia."



Grifters, Inc.

Grifters gotta grift... right?

"Donald Trump and his not-so-merry band of conmen have come up with another scheme to separate their followers from their money. They're launching a rightwing social media site... or at least they say they're going to... we'll see whether anything actually ever appears or not. From their past efforts in this sphere, it will probably launch and then close its doors within the same month. How is it doing so far? About par for the Trumpian course. The company is already under investigation by not just one but two federal agencies for stock manipulation and/or insider trading. Devin Nunes has announced he will immediately be quitting Congress to become the company's C.E.O., even though he has zero experience being the C.E.O. of anything and his most-relevant experience with social media was to unsuccessfully sue because he was annoyed at a fictional cow on Twitter ('Devin Nunes' Cow' won the day when the case was laughed out of court). And the company Trump merged with to launch the venture has a close ally of Brazil's president as its chief financial officer. So, like, what could possibly go wrong with this new social media venture?"




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

December 4, 2021

Friday Talking Points -- How About A Little Economic Good News?

Democrats, as a whole, are pretty bad about messaging. Every so often a brilliant orator breaks this mold (Bill Clinton, Barack Obama) by displaying an ease of communicating with average Americans on a relatable level while still clearly getting their point across. But for the most part, Democratic politicians struggle to master what should be a basic political artform. This problem shows up in an acute way when the subject is the economy. Democrats perpetually shy away from touting economic gains because they fear sounding "out of touch" with the people out there who are still struggling. Republicans, on the other hand, never worry about this at all -- they tout their own successes as a never-before-seen golden age of economic bliss, no matter what is actually going on around kitchen tables across the country. The GOP hammers home this "things are great!" message so effectively that a lot of people start thinking positively about the future even if their own circumstances haven't changed (or have actually gotten worse). Democrats never tap into this inherent optimism because they're always worried that someone somewhere is going to react negatively to hearing some positive news.

President Joe Biden is trying to break through on the subject, but with very limited success. The indicators are mixed. The public is rightfully worried about inflation and high prices. The price of gasoline most especially, mostly because (unlike every other commodity consumers purchase) it is advertised on giant signs in every neighborhood that scream what today's price is every time you drive by them. You can't escape it, and if you have to drive for your life and work, you know you are at the mercy of the oil companies.

But Biden isn't facing some sort of economic meltdown. Far from it, in fact. The real uncertainty in the economy is directly tied to the ongoing worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The news of a new variant (before it was even dubbed Omicron) caused a major drop in stock prices. We still don't know what the ripple effects will be, and we're only now just beginning to recover from the Delta downturn. So the short-term outlook is: "Reply hazy, ask again later."

Nevertheless, Biden should not wait but instead remind people that things aren't as bad as cable news might make them seem. As mentioned, Biden is indeed trying to do this -- he gave a great speech this week that we're going to excerpt heavily later on, in fact -- but other Democrats need to also start singing from the same songbook. So here is our template for what Democrats should start saying about the state of the economy:

Democrats have to start painting a vivid picture that things are actually pretty good and that they're going to get even better in the near future. This is all backed up by data, it is not some rosy-tinted viewpoint. But it has to be said. The public may feel pessimistic right now, but the only way to change that outlook is to make your case. Reminding people that things are nowhere near as bad as they could be -- and nowhere near as bad as they were, just a short time ago -- can indeed change people's minds. Republicans certainly know this -- they are never shy about saying everything is wonderful. Because they know it can change attitudes. They never worry about being seen as "out of touch," instead they accuse others (Democrats, the media) of the ones who are out of touch. Democrats really need to learn this lesson if their (and Biden's) poll numbers are ever going to improve.

Moving on from the economy (more about it later, in the Talking Points), there was one other major political story this week, but it didn't directly involve Joe Biden or Congress. The Supreme Court heard a case on a Mississippi abortion law that could mean the end of Roe v. Wade. After hearing the questioning, most observers concluded that it is really only a question of whether Roe will be entirely overturned or just weakened so much that individual states will be able to essentially regulate it out of existence.

This is a major development, but it took no one by surprise. This is the end result of at least four decades of Republicans caring a lot more about judicial appointments as a political issue than Democrats, plain and simple. Imagine where we would be today if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency in 2016, for instance. We would have at least a 5-4 majority on the court, and perhaps even six liberal justices. Cases like this one attacking Roe wouldn't even be considered. It'd be a completely different world, both for the court and federal law and for the politics behind it all.

Instead, of course, we have six conservative justices, which means even John Roberts (who is often a moderating influence) is completely irrelevant if the other five decide the time is ripe to overturn Roe completely. We wrote about this in detail twice this week (first examining the political consequences of a decision like this coming out in June of a midterm election year and then a second article exploring what could possibly be done to ensure American women have the right to choose no matter what state they live in), in case anyone's interested.

Also in the political sphere was the big pandemic news -- the Omicron variant was given an official name (we're all very slowly now learning the Greek alphabet, it seems) and it was then hyped beyond belief on every television screen tuned into a news program.

Now, it certainly did get a rather ominous-sounding name, we have to admit. "Omicron" kind of sounds like a 1960s-era James Bond villain, after all. But the key to keep in mind is that nobody knows how bad it will be right now. It could become the dominant strain of the COVID-19 virus (as happened with Delta) or it could fizzle (as Mu did). It could be more transmissible and deadly, or it could not. Nobody knows. Nobody is going to know this for at least another week or so, because science is not magic and takes time. Please bear this in mind when listening to the breathless panic-inducing news media reports until the science does provide some answers. So far, as Joe Biden put it, it is a matter of concern, but not one to panic over.

In the House of Representatives, we really should have seen a spate of "Republicans In Disarray" articles in the media, but of course that is never going to happen (such headlines are apparently reserved only for Democrats). A vicious insult fight began with one GOP member cracking jokes about Democrat Ilhan Omar -- you know, yukking it up over how because she's a Muslim she's part of a "Jihad Squad" and would likely have a backpack of explosives inside the U.S. Capitol. Fun stuff like that.

Omar took umbrage (as she was fully entitled to) and the whole thing became a big issue (it still is -- over 40 Democrats are now calling for Lauren Boebert to lose her committee assignments over the slur), but then an interesting thing happened. A decent and moral Republican House member (we know -- we were shocked too, we thought they were extinct...) objected strenuously to such hate-filled and violent rhetoric from a member of her own party. As Nancy Mace put it to CNN, she had previously condemned colleagues on "both sides of the aisle for racist tropes and remarks I found disgusting -- and this is no different than any others." That's an amazingly consistent moral position for a Republican these days to express, obviously. Of course, she was immediately attacked for it by the extremist faction within the House GOP. Which Mace replied to, with a rather amusing collection of emojis.

Kevin McCarthy, the titular leader of the House Republicans, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt (once again) that he has no moral compass whatsoever. Or, for that matter, a spine. He has refused to denounce the anti-Muslim comments of one of his own members, and instead just tried to convince everyone to not attack fellow Republicans in closed-door meetings. These meetings didn't work. McCarthy took no disciplinary action against Boebert, showing once again how cowardly he is towards the most extreme voices within his party.

This does not bode well, should the Republicans win back control of the House in the midterms. If Kevin McCarthy becomes speaker, he's going to remain a captive of the most extreme members of the GOP -- and these days, that's really saying something. Look for such "eating their own" fights within Republican ranks from now on, folks, because McCarthy is obviously completely incapable of disciplining anyone in his own ranks.

Perhaps this is why several prominent Republican moderates have decided against running for the Senate next year. Candidates in both Vermont and New Hampshire who may have been able to easily flip two Democratic seats have both decided to sit this one out. It's hard to blame them, when you see what the GOP congressional dynamic is right now. Even "disarray" is putting it politely.

Instead, they'll have to settle for accused wife-beaters and television quack doctors who push miracle cures as Senate candidates instead.

You'd think this would generate at least a few "Republicans In Disarray" headlines, but sadly you would be wrong about that.





President Joe Biden gave a rather impressive speech this week, even if it didn't get much of an audience. But we're going to highlight it in the Talking Points section, so instead we're going to hand this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Schumer didn't have a great week, mind you, but it also wasn't a complete disaster. The military appropriations bill hit a snag (it was supposed to get a vote midweek) but Schumer did successfully pass a continuing resolution which will avoid a government shutdown tonight and he did so a whole day early. These days, that's more impressive than it sounds.

On both measures, the GOP did what it does best -- mindlessly obstruct. But since nobody really wanted a government shutdown (at least, nobody sane -- a few Republicans were actually cheering for it, of course), Schumer was able to strike a deal with Mitch McConnell to pass the budget with a whole day to spare before the looming government shutdown. This might also bode well for smoothly increasing the debt limit, which also has to be accomplished this month (McConnell has very quietly been in behind-the-scenes talks with Schumer to strike a deal on the debt limit, reportedly).

In any case, the upshot was that the petulant Republicans who were demanding a vote (an "anti-mandate" vote) got what they asked for, and their measure failed 48-50 (two Republicans didn't even show up for the vote). Which allowed the continuing resolution to pass with a healthy (and bipartisan) 69-28 majority. Earlier, it had passed the House with a much more partisan vote of 221-212 (Adam Kinzinger was the only Republican to cross the aisle and vote for it).

This represents the basic duty of Congress -- to keep the lights on and a budget in place. And the can was only kicked down the road to February, so it's really not all that impressive in and of itself. But the fact that the shutdown was averted was.

December is going to be a critical month for all sorts of legislation, so while (as we mentioned) it wasn't all that stellar a week for Schumer and his Democrats, it was impressive enough. Just imagine all the finger-pointing and bloviating which would have taken place if the government had shut down -- and which will now not happen.

So we have to hand the MIDOTW award to Chuck Schumer, for keeping the lights on once again, even in the face of GOP recalcitrance. The outcome was messy, as usual, but a whole lot better than the alternative.

[Congratulate Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on his Senate contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]





We're rather lukewarm in this award category as well, this week. No Democrat was completely and utterly disappointing, so almost by default we are going to award this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week to Senator Joe Manchin.

Schumer struck the deal with the Republicans to allow them to propose their anti-mandate amendment to the bill, expecting it to fail. But Manchin just had to insert himself into the middle of this drama by hinting that he might just cross the aisle and vote with the Republicans:



In the end, as he usually does, Manchin voted with the Democrats. But not before he had made a little tempest in a teapot just to see his name in the news once again. This is really nothing short of political grandstanding for the sake of grandstanding.

Which is why he's getting this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award -- just for being Joe Manchin, essentially.

[Contact Senator Joe Manchin on his Senate contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]




Volume 643 (12/3/21)

Instead of our weekly discrete talking points, we are going to provide major portions of a speech President Biden gave this Wednesday. Mostly because it shows that Biden is indeed trying to tout his own successes while still addressing current and future challenges, but also because he seems to finally be placing a lot of the blame exactly where it belongs: at the feet of the Republicans. His Build Back Better agenda has many good things in it which can very effectively be used in this fashion against the GOP. None of them will vote for any of this stuff, and it's time Democrats started making that political case. In fact, some Republicans are even openly celebrating bad economic indicators as being helpful to their party -- an astonishing display of "party before country," but one that needs pointing out for the public to even hear about it.

This week, Biden's official Twitter account posted what is possibly his most pointed tweet yet, and it also deserves a lot more attention that it is now getting. Here's the tweet:



That's nowhere near as bad as pretty much any random tweet from the previous president, of course, but it certainly makes a point. Republicans want Americans to pay more just to help them out politically.

Biden goes out of his way to make this point more explicitly in his speech. But unfortunately, few saw this speech and few news organizations reported anything at all about it. The one line that did become a soundbite had nothing to do with the speech itself, it was just a bit of throwaway snark at the very end. Biden was asked, as his final question, about Donald Trump testing positive for COVID three days before a debate was held. Biden's response to: "Do you think the former president put you at risk?" was the snappy comeback: "I don't think about the former president. Thank you." Biden then figuratively dropped the mic and walked off the stage.

This was amusing, to be sure, but there was so much else said in this speech that really deserves more attention. We said it before Thanksgiving and we'll say it again: Joe Biden should schedule a primetime address to the nation some time this month, and make his case to the American people. He could do this in a few weeks, when we start getting hard scientific evidence about the virulence of the Omicron variant -- that would be an excellent reason to give such a prominent address.

Biden needs to reassure the country and make his own case of where we currently are and what is going to happen in the near future. He will have a formal opportunity to do so at the end of January, in his first official State Of The Union speech, but he shouldn't wait two months to get out there in front of the cameras.

Again, this was a very good speech from the president. The problem is it only really reached politically wonky people (such as ourselves) and gained zero traction with the public at large. Which is why we chose to highlight it this week. We would love to hear Biden give this speech -- or one very close to it -- to the whole nation soon, not just the people who can tune in midday on a Wednesday.

[Editor's Note: This is all from the official White House transcript, which includes verbal stumbles (which are sometimes edited out in journalism, but we left them untouched). Also, because this speech was given earlier in the week, Biden quoted the "4.6 percent" figure for unemployment -- not today's good news that it is down to 4.2 percent.]



Remarks By President Biden On The Nation's Supply Chains

[W]e are looking ahead to a brighter and happier December with an economy markedly stronger than it was last year.

It's been a tough couple of years, but we've made incredible progress. And, today, I'd like to speak about some of the steps we're taking to address challenges in the economy and how those actions are already starting to pay off for American families.

. . .

If you've watched the news recently, you might think the shelves in all our stores are empty across the country, that parents won't be able to get presents for their children on holidays -- this holiday season.

But here's the deal: For the vast majority of the country, that's not what's happening. Because of the actions the administration has taken in partnership with business and labor, retailers and grocery stores, freight movers and railroads, those shelves are going to be stocked.

. . .

Over the last month, the number of containers left sitting on docks blocking movement to those stores is over -- was for over eight days. Now it's down -- it's down by 40 percent, which means they're heading to shelves in stores more quickly.

That's an incredible success story. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have moved 16 percent more containers so far this year than last year.

By working with business and labor, my administration has been able to handle the huge surge in goods moving through some of our biggest ports. And that has translated into shelves across our country being well-stocked.

. . .

The CEOs I met with this week reported that their inventories are up, shelves are well-stocked, and they're ready to meet the consumer demand for the holidays.

The CEO of -- of Etsy represents over 5 million small businesses and entrepreneurs. He told me, and I quote, "Our survey data says there are less -- they are less concerned about supply chain challenges this year than they were last year." End of quote.

I've also spoken with the CEOs of UPS and FedEx, which are on track to deliver more packages than ever.

Now, I can't promise that every person will get every gift they want on time. Only Santa Claus can keep that promise. But there are items every year that sell out, that are hard to find.

Some of you moms and dads may remember Cabbage Patch Kids back in the '80s or Beanie Babies in the '90s, or other toys that have run out at Christmas time in past years when there was no supply chain problem.

But we're heading into a holiday season on very strong shape. And it's not because of luck. We averted potential crisis by figuring out what needed to get fixed and then we brought people together to do the hard work of fixing it.

That's exactly what we're doing with the second concern I want to talk about today: prices.

Here are a few things you should know: Just about every country in the world is grappling with higher prices right now as they recover from the pandemic.

In the United Kingdom, price increases have hit a 10-year high. In Germany, a 28-year high. In Canada, price increases are the highest they've been since the '90s.

This is a worldwide challenge -- a natural byproduct of a world economy shut down by the pandemic as it comes back to life.

Prices are still out of sunk -- excuse me -- prices are still out of sync as the world comes back. But as we continue to overcome these obstacles, the more price pressures will ease.

But I have not been content to sit back and wait. I've used every tool available to address the price increases. And it's working.

Take gas prices: Last week, I announced the largest-ever release from the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increase the supply of oil and help bring down prices.

I brought together other nations to continue and contribute to the solution. India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the United Kingdom all joined us. They all agreed to release additional oil from their reserves. And China may be doing so as well.

This worldwide effort we're leading will not solve the problem of high gas prices overnight, but it has been making a difference.

Over the last month, likely due in part to anticipation of this action, we've seen the price of oil and gasoline on the wholesale markets come down significantly.

In fact, since the end of October, the average weekly price of gasoline in the wholesale market has fallen by about 10 percent. That's a drop of 25 cents per gallon.

Those savings should reach the American people very soon, and it can't happen fast enough.

And I've asked the Federal Trade Commission to consider whether potentially illegal and anti-competitive behavior in the oil and gas industry is causing higher prices to remain -- be maintained for consumers when the overall cost of oil is down. We can also ensure that American people are paying a fair price for gas.

So, let's take a step back and take stock of where our economy is. Wages are up. Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, we've delivered significant tax cuts for families raising kids.

Tax cuts and rising wages for middle-class families mean that Americans, on average, have about $100 more in their pockets every month and -- than they did last year -- about $350 more each month than they did before the pandemic, even after accounting for inflation.

Let me repeat that: Even after accounting for rising prices, the typical American family has more money in their pockets than they did last year or the year before that.

In fact, we're the only leading economy in the world where household income and the economy as a whole are stronger than they were before the pandemic.

You know, there are other signs of strength too. The number of small businesses is up 30 percent compared to before the pandemic.

Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, we've cut child poverty in America by more than 40 percent. Think about that: Millions of children who spent last Christmas in poverty will not bear that burden this holiday season. And the Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, described it yesterday, that it is, quote, "A profound economic and moral victory for [our] country." End of quote.

Since I took office, we've had record job creation: 5.6 million new jobs since January 20th of this year. The unemployment rate has fallen to 4.6 percent. We're seeing more new small businesses, higher wages, and more disposable income. Fewer children in poverty. Fewer people getting unemployment checks.

None of this was inevitable. It was because of the American Rescue Plan, which virtually every Democrat in Congress voted for and every Republican voted against.

It was because of the hard work my administration has done to try to solve the challenges in our economy, instead of just pointing fingers and complaining.

Now -- now it's time to build on our success and cut costs further for families. That's what my Build Back Better plan does.

It will lower out-of-pocket costs for childcare, eldercare, housing, college, healthcare, and prescription drugs. These are the biggest costs that most families face.

In fact, a new independent analysis released today showed that my Build Back Better plan would mean $7,400 in tax cuts and savings for the typical family with four -- excuse me -- the typical family of four with two kids.

Seventeen Nobel laureate winners in the -- Nobel economics winners have written a letter affirming that this bill will reduce inflationary pressure in the economy.

Two of the leading rating agencies on Wall Street confirmed this month that my plan will not -- will not add to inflationary pressures. In fact, they will, quote, "take the edge off of inflation."

Now my Republican friends are talking a lot about prices, but they're lined up against my Build Back Better plan, which would go right at the problem for rising costs for families. Why is that?

I don't want to speculate on anyone's motive. But it's always easier to complain about a problem than to try to fix it.

One Republican senator even said that rising prices were, quote, "a gold mine," end of quote, for Republicans politically. Imagine rooting for higher costs for American families just to score a few political points.

The fact is the Build Back Better plan is fiscally responsible. And it's the first major piece of legislation in more than a decade that is not only fully paid for, but will generate more than $100 billion in deficit reduction.

It fully covers the cost of its investments by making the largest corporations and the richest Americans pay a little more in taxes. Think about that. Because that's a trade-off worth making, in my view: having those who have done very well pay their fair share in order to provide a little breathing room for millions of American families.

But my critics don't seem to agree. They have a lot of speeches about high prices, supply chains, and other challenges we are facing, but they don't offer any answers. So, they're just doing the "no" vote. That's their plan: Vote "no."

But what does that mean? What does a "no" vote mean on this bill? Not on cable news, not on Fox, not -- in the real world, in your life, around your kitchen table.

Well, here's what it's going to mean: It means for millions of American families, this bill -- the bills you're paying right now for daycare could be substantially lowered, capped at 7 percent of your income. But the Republicans said, "No, pay more."

It means the bills you're paying right now to take care of your elderly parent could have been lower -- a lot lower. But Republicans said, "No, don't vote for this bill. Pay more."

It means the cost of your prescription drugs could have been lower -- a lot lower. But Republicans think that those 200,000 children, for example, who need regular doses of insulin should continue to pay as much as $1,000 a month, instead of $35 a month.

Think of that. It not only affects the health of the child and the family, but imagine you're being a parent and not being able to afford $1,000 a month. Not only it risks the health of your child, but it robs you of your dignity.

The list goes on, but the point is the same.

What I have proposed is a way to lower some of the most difficult costs families have to pay every month by asking big corporations -- 40 of the Fortune 500 companies paid zero in taxes; making $40 billion in the process -- and the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share in taxes.

Look, remember: We're in a situation that as far as Republicans are concerned, they'd rather the bills at your kitchen table be higher so the tax bills of corporate conference rooms and big mansions can be lower.

In this case, let me tell you something: Nothing will be more expensive for American families than a "no" vote on the Build Back Better plan.

I believe we simply can't afford to do nothing and wait and see what happens. In the moments we face today, that just isn't a responsible course.

We live in uncertain times. Families are anxious about COVID, the economy, the cost of living. And the way to relieve that anxiety is with consistent, determined, focused action.

I started my presidency with the American Rescue Plan. Now that law is carrying our nation forward on vaccinations, boosters, keeping our schools open, and so much more.

I designed it as a year-long plan because I knew we'd have a lot of obstacles to overcome.

Next, we passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law because a lot of our infrastructure is crumbling. We have to prepare ourselves to compete and win the 21st century global economy.

For most of the 20th century, we led the world in signif- -- by a significant margin because we invested in ourselves -- not only in our roads and highways and bridges, but in our people and our families.

We built the Interstate Highway System. We invested to win the space race. We were among the first to provide access to free education, beginning back in the late 1800s. These decisions to invest in our country and our families are a major reason why we were able to lead the world for much of the last century.

But somewhere along the way, we stopped investing in ourselves. America is still the largest economy in the world. We still have the most productive workers and the most innovative minds in the world.

But we've risked losing our edge as a nation. Our infrastructure used to be the best in the world. Today, according to the World Economic Forum, we rank 13th.

And we have to invest in our greatest asset as well: our people. For example, we used to lead the world in educational achievement. Now, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranks America 35 out of 37 major countries when it comes to investing in early childhood education and care.

We can't be competitive in the 21st century global economy if we continue to slide.

One of the reasons I believe so firmly in this is because I know what this country can be. We've always been a nation of possibilities. We didn't become this nation we know by dreaming small. Throughout our history, we've emerged from crisis by investing in ourselves.

During and after the wa- -- the Civil War, we built the transcontinental railroad, uniting America.

During the Cold War, we built the Interstate Highway and -- System, transforming the way Americans are able to live their lives.

And now, we'll build the economy for the 21st century.

I truly believe that 50 years from now, when historians look back at this moment they're going to say this was the beginning of the moment when America won the competition for the 21st century. I think that's what we're going to see happen, God willing.

May God bless you all. And may God protect our troops. Thank you very much.




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com