And so we come to the final Friday Talking Points of President Joe Biden's term in office.

It is perhaps appropriate that the funeral of Jimmy Carter happened in the midst of Biden winding down his final weeks. Because Joe Biden -- another one-term Democratic president like Jimmy -- will likely become more appreciated as time goes by, just as Carter was.

Joe Biden had a pretty spectacular first two years in office, in terms of getting legislation passed. Granted, he had a Democratic Congress to work with and the continuing crisis of a pandemic to spur the politicians to actually act. He used both to get a sweeping agenda passed which will have an impact for years to come. But he had to grapple with two corporate-friendly Democrats in the Senate who held him back from achieving an even-more-historic agenda. If the full "Build Back Better" plan had made it past Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, then Americans would doubtlessly feel a lot differently (and better) about government's role in their economic lives.

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In an extraordinary confluence of events, America mourned one former president as his body lay in state in the United States Capitol, while another former (and soon-to-be-again) president was sentenced after being found guilty of 34 felonies by a jury. Jimmy Carter had become almost the personification of decency in his post-presidential life, while Donald Trump has always been the personification of something a lot more tawdry.

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Donald Trump's "Day One" in office is now less than two weeks away. He promised American voters a lot of action on his first day, but in the past few weeks he seems inordinately focused on some rather odd (one might say: "downright bizarre") goals. He has become a big fan of expanding America in what can only be called imperialistic fashion -- adding Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal to the American map. Today he floated a new idea, this one not a land-grab but instead of a sort of water-grab: he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America," for no particular reason (other than to annoy Mexico, one assumes).

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Donald Trump is a master at deflecting attention. Over and over again, he trots out some outrageous idea or catchphrase, and the media all goes chasing after it because they seemingly can't help themselves. Meanwhile, the things Trump is actually doing don't get much attention, which is the whole point of the exercise.

Case in point is Trump suddenly championing a twenty-first century American "Manifest Destiny," where he has set his sights on three pieces of real estate he'd like to add to the United States: Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal. Spoiler alert: none of these are serious proposals. None will actually happen. And yet they are being treated seriously (or at least semi-seriously) by people who really should know better by now.

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It is rare in American politics when Democrats manage to win a political "messaging" war with Republicans, but it certainly seems like they've got a doozy of an opportunity to do just that, on the issue of lowering prescription drug prices. This messaging battle really began in earnest this week, and so far Republicans are losing badly.

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Former President Jimmy Carter has entered his final days. He has checked in to a hospice to live out his remaining time and, according to an official statement, has refused "additional medical care." So it seemed entirely appropriate to use this year's Presidents' Day to honor him. Carter was an extraordinary man and no matter what opinion you have about his presidency, he has set the absolute gold standard for doing good works as an ex-president -- that much is beyond dispute.

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We have to begin today with a look at the woes of the Republican Party. Because, when you think about it, why not?

The most amusing news (speaking from across the political aisle) all has to do with the Republican Party trying to come to grips with another presidential nominating process with Donald Trump as the 800-pound elephant in the room. Most of the party establishment would dearly love to see literally anyone else win the nomination than Trump, but they also fear the prospect of Trump going rogue if he doesn't win and launching his own third-party bid.

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For a little over a week now, America's military might has been called into action to defend our airspace against... balloons. This has led to a frenzy of speculation about what, precisely, is going on up there. It even sparked a bit of a U.F.O. craze of the type not seen since at least Close Encounters Of The Third Kind came out, if not the original U.F.O. craze of the 1950s. This is pretty absurd when you think about it, though, since if advanced civilizations were indeed monitoring humans, you'd think they'd have slightly-more-sophisticated aircraft to do so than the one which travels the slowest and is the easiest to shoot down. But because the tally is now up to four such objects shot out of North America's skies, I thought I'd share my own ballooning thoughts today (pun very much intended).

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Something rather astonishing happened on Capitol Hill this week. The Senate passed a bill by unanimous consent, acting with such blinding speed that some senators weren't even aware of what was happening. Contrast this to the Senate's usual modus operandi, which is for things to move so slowly that a glacier would be seen as zipping along by comparison. Arcane parliamentary procedures are routinely used to gum up the legislative works, which often leads to nothing at all happening -- after spending enormous amounts of time and energy in the attempt.

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This week, President Joe Biden gave his first State Of The Union speech to the United States Congress, to the American people, and to the rest of world. This speech had to be hastily rewritten at the last minute, obviously, due to intervening events. Russia's Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine at the end of last week, which was obviously a lot more important than any political points or laundry lists of proposed legislation. So the speech got a quick makeover.

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