Nominations Open For Second Round Of Year-End Awards
[Program Note: This was supposed to be published yesterday, but in the year-end frenzy, I forgot to click the "Publish" button backstage, so I am publishing it now for people to make "Part 2" nominations. The "Part 1" column is imminent, the writing is done but the editing and formatting will take some time, so keep checking back later tonight.]
I am taking a break from writing tomorrow's article, which will be the first installment of our annual year-end awards, in order to throw open the nominations for the second half, which will run next week (on either Thursday or Friday, we haven't decided -- but the column will be up all of Christmas weekend, so everyone will get a chance to see it).
We are grateful for the suggestions we've already gotten, some of which we had entirely forgotten about, so once again everyone is proving that asking readers for their nominations was a really good idea (that took us a really long time to come up with, we must admit!).
As always during December, we would point out that it is a dandy time to donate to the site, as we haven't even hit halfway of our annual pledge drive target yet. So if you have the means and the time, please consider funding this site for all of next year. Click on the thermometer above and it will take you to the donation page. And thanks!
OK, without further ado, here are the categories for the second and final segment of the year-end awards. Please make nominations for any or all of them down in the comments, and see you all back here tomorrow for our first tranche of 2022 awards.
Destined For Political Stardom
Destined For Political Oblivion
Best Political Theater
Worst Political Theater
Worst Political Scandal
Most Underreported Story
Most Overreported Story
Biggest Government Waste
Best Government Dollar Spent
Boldest Political Tactic
Best Idea
Worst Idea
Sorry To See You Go
15 Minutes Of Fame
Best Spin
Worst Spin
Most Honest Person
Biggest Liar
Most Overrated
Most Underrated
Predictions
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Destined for Political Stardom: Hakeem Jeffries
Destined for Political Oblivion: Madison Cawthorn
Best Political Theater: the Jan. 6th hearings
Worst Political Theater: Trump trading cards
Most Underreported Story: climate change
Most Overreported Story: inflation
Biggest Government Waste: ethanol subsidies
Best Government Dollar Spent: Ukraine aid
Best Idea: Sen. Warren's push to create free government tax software
Sorry to See You Go: Nancy Pelosi
Worst Spin: the Space Laser Lady saying she was "only joking" about how she would have "won" on Jan. 6th
Most Honest Person: Liz Cheney
Biggest Liar: Space Laser Lady, for reasons already noted
Predictions: Trump will be indicted. If he is taken into custody, there will be violence.
Destined For Political Stardom
Josh Shapiro, incoming Pennsylvania governor.
Destined For Political Oblivion
Liz truss, UK prime minister for four scaramuccis.
Best Political Theater
The January 6 commission hearings
Worst Political Theater
The purchase and dismantling of Twitter
Worst Political Scandal
Mar a Lago documents search. Maybe he had Hilary's emails?
Most Underreported Story
10% of u.s. adults get their news on tiktok, which is at least partly owned, run and moderated by the Chinese government.
Most Overreported Story
Harry and Meghan
Biggest Government Waste
Subsidies to massive farm conglomerates
Best Government Dollar Spent
COVID boosters
Boldest Political Tactic
Doubling down on Dobbs and forced-birth
Best Idea
Ranked choice in Alaska
Worst Idea
Invading Ukraine
Sorry To See You Go (it was a ridiculous year in notable obituaries; this list is huge and not even close to complete)
Qe2
Nichelle Nichols
Kirstie Alley
Bob AND Luis from sesame street
Christine mcvie
Bill Russell
Ivana trump
Madeleine Albright
Sidney Poitier
Meat loaf
Gilbert Gottfried
Bob saget
James caan
Shinzo Abe
Vin Scully
Olivia Newton John
Mikhail Gorbachev
Jerry Lee Lewis
Angela Lansbury
Ashton Carter
(Hot lips) Sally Kellerman
Lauro Cavazos (Ed Sec under Reagan & h.w.)
Mimi Reinhard (Oskar Schindler's secretary)
Ray Liotta
Rosemarie von trapp (real life sound of music)
Mark Shields (pbs news hour)
Woody Williams (WW2 war hero)
David Trimble
Loretta Lynn
Judy Tenuta
Gallagher
ipods
15 Minutes Of Fame
Jim Watson, mayor of Ottawa (broke up stupid trucker protest)
ISIS leader al-quraysa (blows himself up)
Wordle, worldle, etc.
Kano, Nigeria (broke 4 million bottles of beer)
Hannah Green (first woman to win an intergender 72 hole golf tournament)
Rich Strike (80-1 Kentucky derby winner)
Best Spin
"Forced-birth" replaces "pro-life" in the wake of Dobbs and teen rape victims having to cross state lines to avoid carrying rapist embryos to term.
Worst Spin
Attempts by Putin to justify Russia's invasión of Ukraine, and Tucker Carlson's suggestion to support Russia. “Why would we take Ukraine’s side and not Russia’s side? Why?! Who’s got the energy reserves? Who’s the major player in world affairs?… Why wouldn’t we be on Russia’s side?” yikes.
Most Honest Person
Liz Cheney, in the face of a primary challenge
Biggest Liar
Vladimir Putin: Ethnic Russians face "genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime."
Most Overrated
The Russian military
Most Underrated
Ukrainian resistance
Predictions
COVID will have another brief surge, but will fade into the background.
Russia will continue to lose ground in Donbas, possibly even Crimea. Putin will remain obdurate and institute another draft.
President Biden will see an uptick in approval rating. Trump (after a profitable merger with the bankrupt truth social) will rejoin Twitter and take credit. "He steals my ideas and then his numbers go up. Sad."
Kevin McCarthy will make a deal with moderate Democrats to vote for him for Speaker.
Joe Manchin will find a way to obstruct again, only to reverse course again in summer of '24. Republicans and Democrats alike will continue to be blindsided by his flip flops.
Great Britain will try to rejoin the EU
TikTok will take over as America's #1 news source. Tianamen square will consequently fade from public memory.
Destined For Political Stardom - Pete Buttigieg
Destined For Political Oblivion - Donald Trump
Best Political Theater - Mar-A-Lago raid
Worst Political Theater - Rollout of Trump trading cards
Worst Political Scandal - Loss of Secret Service Texts regarding Jan. 6th.
Most Underreported Story - New investigation of UFOs by the U.S. government.
Most Overreported Story - Anything on Tucker Carlson's show
Biggest Government Waste - Companies that took advantage of Covid relief who didn't deserve it.
Best Government Dollar Spent - Covid vaccinations
Boldest Political Tactic - John Fetterman's campaign
Best Idea - Ranked choice voting
Worst Idea - Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter.
Sorry To See You Go - Leslie Jordan, whose warmth and humor got us through difficult times.
15 Minutes Of Fame - Queen's former Lady in Waiting Susan Hussey.
Best Spin - Raphael Warnock's victory speech
Worst Spin - Republicans trying to redeem Herschel Walker
Most Honest Person - John Fetterman
Biggest Liar - Vladimir Putin
Most Overrated - The Russian military
Most Underrated - The Ukrainian military and Western resolve and unity.
Predictions - Trump will be indicted and arrested before the Spring of 2023 is over.
Destined For Political Stardom – Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro
Destined For Political Oblivion – Mike Pence
Best Political Theater – Schumer/Manchin
Worst Political Theater – Kanye Kardashian
Biggest Government Waste – War on Some Drugs
Boldest Political Tactic – constitution Terminator
Worst Idea – paying $44 billion for Twitter
Sorry To See You Go – Fauci
Worst Spin – The orange one told me to riot on J6
Biggest Liar – Fat Donny can only be knocked out of the top spot by death
Most Overrated – Ron DeSanctimonious (his beatdown awaits)
Most Underrated – Brian Kemp (he beat Big Orange)
I'll post first and read everyone else's after. If we come up with some of the same answers, then we'll know we must be onto something. ;)
Destined For Political Stardom: Hard to narrow this down to one choice because Newsom, Shapiro, Whitmer, Buttigieg the list is deep, but I'm going with John Fetterman. I think Fetterman is going to go into Washington DC and make some noise. How can this guy not be a mover and shaker when he's that "extra vote"?
Destined For Political Oblivion: For numerous reasons not the least of which is him being too much of a coward to level with Americans about numerous Trump felonies he personally witnessed, Mike Pence's political career is as dead as the fly who upstaged him during the VP debate.
Best Political Theater: Definitely the January 6th Committee, but that term denotes a stunt, which that committee definitely wasn't.
Worst Political Theater: The idiots spinning conspiracy theories to blame Nancy Pelosi, Capitol Police or anyone else for the premeditated insurrection on January 6. Blaming Democrats for not stopping them is pretty much a GOP staple throughout history, but this one isn't hard even for stupid people: Donald Trump directly participated in organizing people all across America to submit multiple false Electoral College slates -- actual fake certificates -- to Congress that declared Trump the winner in their multiple states. Trump himself personally phoned Ronna McDaniel -- per her own sworn testimony -- and put her on the phone with John Eastman to discuss obtaining assistance from the Republican National Committee in the fake electors scheme. Trump phoned her directly from the White House. Trump himself -- per the testimony of multiple witnesses except the coward Pence -- put pressure on his own Vice President to unilaterally accept the fake slates of electors/fake certificates that he and his co-conspirators assembled to illegally subvert the will of the people in multiple states. Trump himself phoned multiple state officials to put pressure on them to change the outcome, most notably Georgia, which phone call is taped in its entirety and publicly available. Trump assembled a mob and pointed them toward the Capitol. Then Trump sat on his ass doing nothing while a mob he knew was armed attacked the Capitol. But sure, blame Nancy Pelosi and law enforcement for not knowing Trump's plan and stopping it all.
How stupid is all that?
Answer: Not as stupid as those dumb NFT's wherein Fat Donny turns himself into a thin cartoon caricature of himself -- doing things he's never done -- in order to fleece the marks out of even more of their money. Self-made billionaire? Nope. Fake, phony, fraud who inherited daddy's money and routinely screws stupid people out of theirs. Grifters gonna grift.
Worst Political Scandal:
On actual Earth: Trump's theft of United States property and thousands of classified documents including those classified Top Secret at the highest levels.
Over on Earth 2: Hunter Biden's laptop
Most Underreported Story:
Take your pick:
* The current effects of global warming driven by increased human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases
* The price of gas when it's lower and decreasing
Most Overreported Story: The price of gas when it's higher and increasing
Biggest Government Waste: Improper payments by Medicare for fraudulent claims. The United States could save billions per year if they'd hire more law enforcement to go after the fraud in Medicare claims, not unlike the billions they could recover by hiring more IRS personnel to go after the perennial tax cheaters like Donald Trump.
Best Government Dollar Spent: Always and still the National Park System. Fun Fact: The National Defense Authorization Act of 2022 authorized a free lifetime pass to national parks and other federal recreational lands for eligible Veterans and Gold Star Families. I got mine; thank you America.
Boldest Political Tactic: Putin's entire disinformation campaign while amassing thousands of troops at the border of Ukraine and total new disinformation campaign upon invasion of Ukraine. Stupid but bold.
Best Idea: Biden's student loan forgiveness of 2022 was the best idea for multiple reasons.
Worst Idea: Putin's invasion of Ukraine
Sorry To See You Go: Queen Elizabeth II
15 Minutes Of Fame: Liz Truss, the 15th prime minister to serve during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II
Best Spin: Jon Stewart's, "If this is America first, then America is fucked."
Worst Spin: Putin's ever-changing dezinformatsiya regarding his bold but stupid invasion of Ukraine
Most Honest Person: Jon Stewart who shredded the GOP for their usual bullshit
Biggest Liar: Putin... and his puppets Trump and Tucker Carlson
Most Overrated: The Reds
(1) The GOP's Red Wave/Tsunami that was supposed to take over Congress bigly. Count the defeated incumbent Senate Democrats.
(2) Putin's Red Army that was supposed to take over Ukraine. Count the dead Russian generals.
Most Underrated: Women's fury. For instance: Don't like abortion? Don't have one or pay for one. You're a woman who wants to ban abortion? Mind your own damn business. You're a man who wants to ban abortion? Get castrated and mind your own damn business.
Predictions:
* Trump will be indicted by multiple jurisdictions, including but not limited to: Georgia, New York, the United States.
* If he doesn't drop out of the GOP presidential race before the primaries, Trump will be left off ballots in some states in America citing Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
* After having been lobbied for years by McConnell, Joe Manchin will (finally) leave the Democratic Party.
* DeSantis will be the GOP's Dukakis; he's already (foolishly) provided the ammunition.