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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Today was a pretty boring day in Washington -- which is as it should be. Congress met and certified the Electoral College votes in the ceremonial finish to last year's presidential election. There were no riots, no protests, and no insurrection attempt by a brigade of sore losers. The Capitol remained peaceful throughout. In fact, the whole thing was so boring that it's really not even worth writing a whole column about it.

Instead, let's focus on what the new Congress has on its plate. With two weeks to go before Donald Trump is sworn into office again, Republicans are already eager to get his second term rolling. The Senate will begin hearings on Trump's cabinet appointees, most of which will be pretty dull and perfunctory -- but a handful of them could get quite lively indeed. Especially considering the fact that Democrats will get to question each of them publicly about anything under the sun. They'll do so to score political points, but also in an effort to convince a few worried Republicans of the candidates' unfitness for office. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, so it will take four of them rejecting any nominee to tank their chances. But most of them will wind up sailing through the process, even if one or two do get derailed.

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American politics can, at times, be cyclic in nature. One party has a defining characteristic and the other party is at the opposite end of the spectrum -- but over time the pendulum can swing, and the parties wind up reversed from their previous positions. Case in point: it wasn't that long ago that congressional Democrats were known for their fractious behavior with many different factions at loggerheads with each other, to such a point that large groups of them crossing the aisle and voting with the Republicans was a regular occurrence. Charmingly enough, it was referred to as Democrats' "cat-herding problem." Cats, as we all know, are impossible to herd, since they are all fierce individualists and resist any attempts to get them all headed in the same direction. Herding the Democratic cats was seen as a Herculean (and quite possibly impossible) task.

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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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Welcome back to the second of our year-end awards columns! And if you missed it last Friday, go check out [Part 1] as well.

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Well, that was quick. Donald Trump has already been eclipsed. His signature bomb-throwing style has now been outdone by the man who seemingly refuses to leave Trump's side, and who is a much bigger bomb-thrower than even Trump himself. Elon Musk is now running the government -- or, at the very least, the Republican Party's part of it. This has relegated Trump to being an afterthought, something that he's not usually very comfortable with. Will this begin to chafe? Will Trump decide to sideline Musk at some point, for the sin of overshadowing him on the political stage? We'll have to see, but we do have one suggestion for Democrats who might wish for this to happen.

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It must be a slow news month. That's the obvious explanation. But then "obvious explanations" aren't exactly newsworthy, or maybe just not entertaining enough, perhaps. It's much more fun to present all kinds of wild theories, isn't it? Which, again, is the obvious explanation for why the mainstream media keeps (pun definitely intended) droning on and on.

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Everybody ready? Here is the first installment of our year-end awards, with our obligatory nod to The McLaughlin Group television show for coming up with these categories.

As always, it's a marathon. It's really, really long. Don't say you weren't warned! And since it is so long, that's all the introduction we're going to bother with.

Ready?... everyone buckle up... here we go....

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It has been astonishing to watch the reactions to the cold-blooded killing of a health insurance executive. Not so much the rude reactions people have been posting online, but the reactions to those reactions, in both the media and in the political world. This inability to recognize the rage that exists towards health insurers in general is nothing more than elitism. People who simply can't understand this free-floating anger are out of touch with the struggles ordinary people face and the powerless feeling it leaves them with. Murdering someone on the street is obviously an unacceptable answer, but it has provided a catharsis of feeling that someone out there took the power into his own hands for once. It's not exactly Robin Hood, but cheering for an outlaw isn't exactly a new thing when the outlaw is seen to be fighting back against entrenched power.

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