January:  Rioters once again storm the Capitol, demanding that Joe Biden be removed from the presidency.  But unlike last year when domestic terrorists wanted to install Donald Trump, this group wants the world run by K-Pop band BTS, because Jungkook is dreamy and everything will be okay if they’re in charge.  The plot fails when the rioters have to get home before their curfew.

February:  Knowing they have to do something to capture the American public’s attention, the House Select Committee investigating the J6 attack leverages Americans’ love of TV crime procedurals and drafts former Law & Order star Sam Waterston to interrogate witnesses in televised hearings. Shockingly, under Waterston’s questioning, Alex Jones breaks down on the stand and admits that he killed the woman from the coffee shop to cover up his theft of fur coats.  In the aftermath of the revelation, Chairman Bennie Thompson changes the name of the committee to “Law & Order:  Domestic Terrorism Unit,” and viewership soars.  TNT picks up syndication rights.

The CDC is warning all Americans to stay away from cruise ships. A Traveler’s health warning from the CDC states that cruise travel has been afflicted by “very high levels of Covid19”, and should be avoided regardless of your vaccination status. The CDC has raised the danger level for cruise travel to “4”, which this author interprets as: “You’ll probably be surrounded by MAGA blue hairs with fake vaccination cards who refuse to wear their masks or practice proper social distancing and there’s pretty close to a 100% chance that if you get on that ship you’re going to get Covid.”

Individuals who are thinking of going on a cruise should just stop. Don’t go on a cruise, unless it’s one of those small boat cruises on the Great Lakes where you’re on a boat with only a dozen other people and the boat is small enough you can bring a fishing pole and fish right off the back if you want. Those are really expensive, but they’re awesome. Those giant floating monstrosities that leave from Florida suck.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who hadn’t been seen in public in days, showed up on stage at some MAGAchurch event Friday night. Robert Plant’s creepy, evil clone presented some sort of made-up “Freedom Award” to the irresponsible demagogue, calling him “righteous”.

With the help of a map of his home village drawn from memory, a Chinese man was reunited with his mother from whom he was kidnapped and sold by a child trafficking ring to a family living 1,100 miles away, the BBC reports.

Li Jingwei was just four years old when he was taken by a child trafficking ring from Zhaotong, a region of five million people, in the northeast Chinese province of Yunnan, in 1989.  Li got no help from his adoptive parents, who live in Guangdong Province in southern China, when asking about his birthplace.  Searches of genetic databases online also proved frutiless.

On December 24, Li posted a video to the Chinese social media site Douyin in which he showed a hand-drawn map of what he remembered from his home village.   “I’m a child who’s finding his home. I was taken to Henan by a bald neighbour around 1989, when I was about four years old,” he said in the video.  “This is a map of my home area that I have drawn from memory,” holding up a drawing which showed a pond, a bamboo forest and a building he believed to be a school.

Airlines are still dealing with staff shortages caused by flight crew members calling in sick with the Omicron variant. Travel is also being complicated by a winter storm passing over the Midwestern states, that could dump as much as nine inches of snow in Chicago. The AP reports that as of Saturday afternoon there were over 2500 flights delayed or cancelled in the United States, and over 4300 flights delayed or cancelled worldwide.

The Marshall Fire destroyed hundreds of homes in suburbs between Denver and Boulder, leading to the evacuation of nearly 30,000 people reports NPR. Snowfall Friday night into Saturday morning helped to put out the blaze. Two people have been reported missing as a result of the fire, and rescue workers are currently searching debris of their homes for remains. The sudden drop in temperatures is a challenge for individuals returning to homes that have no electricity or running water as a result of damage done to municipal lines by the fire.

I’m definitely more of a realist than an optimist, but I really do have a feeling that 2022 has the potential to turn out alright. Following is a list of four things that I hope to see happen in 2022.

Joe Biden will prove to be a master at the art of being a sonofabitch: Biden’s recent announcement of a White House effort to combat corruption provides him with plenty of leeway to go after GOP nonsense, including improper campaign contributions from foreign sources, and abuse of non-profit status by GOP political operatives. Republicans will whine and complain they are being “targeted”, but Biden will explain that the law is very clear when it comes to things like foreign contributions and qualifications for non-profit status, and these individuals will be tried in a court of law.  Biden will use the White House “Bully Pulpit” to call for recusal of Federalist Society judges so they can’t abuse the authority of their positions to pass favorable rulings for the organization that helped them obtain a spot on the Federal Bench.

Part I of this series covered January through March. We didn’t expect to find this much objectively good (or at least entertaining because it was bad for the other guys – an ambiguous heuristic) news to require sectioning off by 3 months, but here we go into the Spring:

April 2021

MLB relocates 2021 All-Star Game out of Georgia

Trump commands his fanbase to boycott Coca-Cola products, does shitty job of hiding Diet Coke bottle behind phone in pic

Just had a terrific meeting with President Trump! pic.twitter.com/jGyAnURAky

— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) April 5, 2021

Texas AG Ken Paxton blocks National Zero on Twitter: Reversed in July when Paxton was ordered by a judge to unblock everyone, but that was still a win.

In a Thursday phone call, President Biden threatened additional sanctions against Russia over threats against the Ukraine. Putin reportedly responded by claiming such sanctions would be a “colossal mistake” the BBC reports.

In a recent report on countering international corruption, the Biden administration addressed the problem of corrupt individuals who take advantage of lax financial rules to promote anti-Democratic propaganda in other countries. Biden has an opportunity to use the conflict in the Ukraine to justify a massive crack-down on money flows from Russian oligarchs to their Republican Party minions in the United States, and then leverage those findings to justify a complete dismantling of the State Policy Network, a collection of GOP activist groups that includes organizations such as FreedomWorks, the National Rifle Association, and the Federalist Society.

The Texas Secretary of State’s office chose late on the evening of New Year’s Eve to release their preliminary findings from an audit of the 2020 election, because they found basically jack shit as far as discrepancies go, the Texas Tribune reports. The audit – which by all appearances is a legitimately conducted one even if it the reasons behind it were complete bullshit – was (naturally) limited to four of the six most populated counties in Texas: Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, and Collin.

The first three are the top three, all of which were won by Biden, albeit narrowly in Tarrant. Collin County is the sixth most populated, and Trump won it by 4.36%, so it may have been some sort of control sample. Several precincts in each county were reviewed and the discrepancies between the electronic tabulations and hand counts – out of tens of thousands of votes – totaled to 35 between three of the four counties (Tarrant County showed zero). The data on potentially dead, convicted felon, non-citizen, or two-state voters is a whole bunch of meaningless “under review” type shit.

Trump commanded Governor Greg Abbott to begin the audit in a fit of rage in September, an order with which the lowly thrall Abbott quickly complied, fearing the Orange Pharaoh’s wrath. This despite Trump winning the Lone Star state by over 500,000 votes in the 2020 election and Abbott having signed a bill to make it even harder for minorities to vote there. Smart move to drop the progress report on New Year’s Eve where it has a better chance of flying under his radar.

Trump minion and disgraced former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik has turned over a batch of documents to the House January 6th Select Committee, Politico reports. Kerik also submitted a “privilege log” of documents that he withheld from the committee because he thinks they’re subject to attorney-client privilege. Noteworthy on this list is one titled “DRAFT LETTER FROM POTUS TO SEIZE EVIDENCE IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONAL SECURITY FOR THE 2020 ELECTIONS”, which is probably exactly what it sounds like, that batshit Kraken plan to mobilize the military and/or Justice Department to seize all ballots and voting equipment in the contested states from December 2020. Kerik’s scheduled interview with committee staff for January 13 remains in doubt due to some disagreements between his attorney and the the committee over the specific terms.

Eric Adams, the 61-year-old former NYPD captain and Brooklyn Borough President, was sworn in as New York City’s second Black mayor and 110th mayor overall in a ceremony in Times Square shortly after midnight Saturday, the New York Times reports. Adams faces some serious challenges as the city’s economic recovery from the Spring 2020 COVID-19 outbreak killed tens of thousands of New Yorkers continues to be hampered by the virus’s reemergence and the Omicron strain.

Meanwhile, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the first Black man to hold the position, was sworn in at a private ceremony, taking over for Cy Vance during the office’s intensifying investigation into the Trump crime syndicate, ABC News reports. The Trump Organization and its Chief Financial Officer Alan Weisselberg are already facing trial for tax evasion while a perilous decision to charge the Orange Kingpin himself for tax and bank fraud looms.

• Madden, Reid, White, Tutu:  leaders in their fields, and role models for generations.  The world is better for their presence, and worse off from their loss.  
• Let’s call Ghislaine Maxwell what she actually is:  a pimp selling child sex slaves.
• For a Christmas and New Year’s that conservatives claim Dr. Fauci canceled, there sure seems to have been a lot of revelry, much more than last year.  
• With the start of the New Year, people in 81 state and local jurisdictions will see pay raises thanks to increases in the minimum wages.  More than 3,000 counties, 50 states and the federal government would have seen a path to a $15 minimum wage if Manchin and Sinema would’ve signed off on the original Build Back Better plan.  Instead, Arizonans will see minimum wage increase just 15¢ to $12.15, and West Virginia will maintain a $8.75 wage (and just $2.63 if you work for tips).
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume L”

We’re all sick of the bad mojo from 2020 and 2021, so your faithful writer will take on a series of superstitions from various countries and cultures to bring good luck and prosperity to 2022.  The list:

• Kiss the love of my life.
• Eat 12 grapes at midnight.  (Spain, one for each month of luck.)
• Throw a full bucket of water out a door or window. (Puerto Rican)
• Open and close doors twelve times.  (China, to escort bad spirits out and invite good spirits in.  Ireland has a similar tradition.)
• Make noise.  (China and Philippines, to ward off bad spirits.)
• Carry luggage out the door.  (Colombia, to guarantee safe travels.)
  Read More ▶ “Jack’s list of New Year’s superstitions he’ll undertake at midnight hoping that it will lead to a better 2022”

Responding to a report about federal judges ruling on cases involving companies in which they have a financial interest, Chief Justice John Roberts said more training on financial ethical rules needs to occur, Reuters reports.

The Wall Street Journal reported in a September 2021 investigation that 131 judges presided in more than 650 cases in which they or their family members had a financial interest in one of the parties involved, and they did so without notifying ethics officials.  Subsequent investigations show there were 950 recusal violations from 2010 to 2018.

One of the cases that needs investigating fell outside that timeframe:  Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in income his wife received from a Heritage Foundation, and Thomas himself sat on the bench for dozens of cases in which the Heritage Foundation, an affiliate, or a funder was either a direct part or filed amicus briefs.  Thomas never recused himself from any of the cases. 

Far right anti-government, anti-vaccine protesters set fire to the Old Parliament House in Canberra, the seat of the national Australian legislature from 1927 to 1988.  The building, reopened in 2008 as the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, suffered extensive damage.

Far-right pundits initially claimed that a native “smoking” ritual–the use of smoke by aboriginal tribes to ride a structure of evil spirits–had gone awry causing the fire, but the video above shows people intentionally setting and feeding the flames.

2021 was the hangover from the gallon of turpentine forced down our throats in 2020. Lots of headaches, scars, and nausea for the lingering aftereffects of a bad time. But plenty of good moments too. While plenty of other websites and publications are going to hammer you with everything that was bad, let’s take it in another direction and celebrate what was objectively good for America as well as the “good” – as in the schadenfreude-y shit Blue America loves.

The James Webb Space Telescope, launched earlier this week, extended the port boom and deployed half of its five-layer heat shield that will absorb solar radiation and allow the instruments on the “dark side” operate in the near absolute-zero temperatures of space.

The United States will continue to support the operations of the International Space Station through at least 2030, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced Friday, NBC News reports.  Previously, the US commitment ran through 2024.

The Biden Administration says it will continue to work with the international coalition that operates the ISS, developing technology to maintain the station and conducting experiments from around the world onboard.  “As more and more nations are active in space, it’s more important than ever that the United States continues to lead the world in growing international alliances and modeling rules and norms for the peaceful and responsible use of space,” Nelson said in a statement

The future of the coalition was put into doubt with Russian space operations that threatened the safety of the station and the people on it.  Earlier this year, the Russians destroyed one of its orbiting satellites in a trial of its offensive capabilities in space.  The explosion resulted in ten of thousands of bits of space junk, dangerous debris that can damage functioning space devices.  The ISS had to take emergency measures to prevent significant damage from the unplanned orbits of the shrapnel from the explosion.

Israel has reported recorded the first case of a combined influenza and coronavirus infection, with a person seeking treatment for the two simultaneous viral infections, Republic World reports based off an Arab News account.

This is the first known patient with both viral infections active at the same time, and the outcome of the condition is unknown.  No information is available on the patient, including age or any pre-existing conditions.

The announcement comes as the Health Ministry of Israel has recommended a second booster shot for people with significant pre-existing conditions.  Sheba Medical Center has begun inoculating heart transplant patients prior to surgery.  Also, 150 medical staff who had a full dose of the vaccine and a booster received a second booster.