The start of the year has been so bizarre that a January edition of the half-month in review is needed
In normal circumstances, I wait until the end of the month to review the news, but January has been so crazy that a look at the first half is needed. Let's take a long look:
The House of Representatives tried to elect a Speaker. The keyword is tried. Three days and fifteen votes later they finally succeeded. You know what they say about doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. INSANITY! It was the perfect example of this.
At the end of night one, Kevin McCarthy held a meeting in his office. There was a video of a couple of dozen pizza boxes being wheeled in. I know Papa John’s is the pizza of choice of Maga Republicans, but dude, if you're trying to change votes, maybe go for something a little tastier than that crap.
Before the voting started, McCarthy started moving into the Speaker’s suite. When he wasn't elected after the first day, Matt Gaetz sent a letter protesting the move-in and called him a squatter. I guess Gaetz was really pissed off about pizza.
In the meantime, out in Arizona, the loser in the Governor’s election, Kari Lake, has started calling herself, “The real Governor.” Maybe she should have called McCarthy to get some advice on how to move into an office before being elected.
Back in D.C., Republicans became frustrated as the voting went on without electing anyone. Mike Rogers lost control and started to go after Gaetz, who surprisingly kept calm. Rogers's punishment for his behavior was the chairmanship of the Armed Services Committee.
In local news, the Chicago mayoral election is coming up in February. Current mayor Lori Lightfoot thought it would be a good idea to send emails to Chicago Public School teachers to try to get them to convince their students to volunteer for her reelection campaign. She thought wrong and took an incredible amount of heat for that action. As usual, she shrugged it off with a lame apology and an even lamer excuse. Lightfoot blamed a young, inexperienced staffer for this. It never works when you pass off responsibility and throw others under the bus for a mistake. Lori will learn that lesson the hard way when Chicago voters throw her under the bus for what has occurred over the last four years.
Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders took the reins as Arkansas Governor. The state is ranked forty-seventh in educational attainment, forty-sixth in median income, and forty-seventh in life expectancy. On her first day, how did Sarah start to solve these issues? In her first act as Governor, she banned the word Latinx. Looks like we now know in what state Sarah got her education.
In Nebraska, former Governor Pete Ricketts, part of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs, was appointed to fill the state’s empty seat in the U.S. Senate. It’s just a short-term appointment because there will be a special election this fall. I can’t wait to see the reaction when the team holds a fundraiser for Pete at Wrigley Field during a game this summer. I’m sure it will go over well with the team’s liberal fanbase.
Talking about the Cubs, they held their annual fan convention last weekend. My favorite highlight was owner Tom Ricketts getting booed again. Do you think he even knows why the fans don’t like him even after bringing the team a World Series championship after more than a century? Let’s count the ways…he took the team off of free television for a station that most people hate, he traded off the championship team’s heroes without getting any current major league players in return, then he claimed huge pandemic losses and failed to spend any real money for a few years to make the team competitive, then came another rebuild which made Cubs major league team unwatchable, he has a vendetta against Sammy Sosa for a few things that occurred long before his family bought the Cubs, and he’s building a betting facility attached to Wrigley Field that is a pure money grab…should I go on? It’s amazing how much goodwill among the team’s fans he’s squandered in such a short period of time. I’m not sure he can gain that back, even if they win another championship.
How about a great sports story? Two weeks ago, Buffalo Bills player, Damar Hamlin was taken off the playing field in an ambulance after suffering heart failure in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals. His heart had to be resuscitated twice and he then spent days in critical condition. Less than fourteen days later, he recovered enough to go home and then visit his team at their practice session the day before their first playoff game. Doctors say although it’s early, it’s possible he may return be able to return to playing football. In a cycle dominated by bad news, it’s nice to get an amazing heartwarming story.
Sad news in the music world as legendary guitarist Jeff Beck died after a short illness with bacterial meningitis. How many of us combined music fans/hypochondriacs Googled what that disease is? How many of us immediately found self symptoms of the disease? (Raising hand high in the air!!)
Finally, on Sunday’s “Meet the Press”, one of the guests was Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson. Yeah, the same guy who a few years ago spent our country’s Independence Day holiday visiting Russia. For some reason, he’s a semi-regular on the program where he usually spews out his nonsense unchallenged by host Chuck Todd. For whatever reason, this time was different. When Johnson started off on the FBI and their lack of investigation of Hunter Biden, Chuck interrupted with, “Senator, do you have a crime that you think Hunter Biden committed? Because I’ve yet to see anybody explain. It is not a crime to make money off of your last name."
Johnson came back at him with more Hunter crap and then took on the media and how their bias is the reason Biden isn’t already prosecuted and in prison. Todd again took him on, "Senator, look, we're trying to do issues here and facts. Look, you can go back on your partisan cable cocoon and talk about media bias all you want. I understand it’s part of your identity, Senator! Alright, I've had enough of hearing this!"
Wow! Who knew Chuck Todd had balls and where have they been for the last decade? If he keeps it up I may have to start watching “Meet the Press” again!
See! I told you there was a lot going on in the first part of January. And that was without dealing with classified documents, Illinois gun laws, George Santos, Marge and Lauren fighting in the bathroom, and the new members of the Cubs Hall of Fame. I'm sure we'll get to that and much more in a couple of weeks. I sarcastically look forward to it. Sigh!