The "Brutally Honest" column is on holiday break, giving the author the chance to rest and relax for a few weeks.
The first article for 2022 will be on Monday, January 24th... barring any more acts of insurrection or domestic terrorist attacks by fascists and other nationalists.
In the meantime, if there are any quick thoughts the author would like to add, please check out the Brutally Honest Rants page on D1CK (aka "Facebook").
Happy Holidays!
Hard to believe another year has come and about to be gone.
As this is the last article for the year, we continue the tradition of columnists everywhere to sum up the best of the best and the worst of the worst for the year and all those in-between of note. And... this year was not as bad as recent years have been, mostly because of who is not in the White House.
So let’s get started...
The Biggest Losers of 2021: The American People – I wish I could say that the American people were the real winners of the year, but they aren’t. We started the year off with outright insurrection and domestic terrorism by the red-hat wearing cult followers of Narcissist Donald John Trump, and it continued with their revenge on democracy by Trump Party state legislators, and by the continued violence on planes by anti-mask travelers, and by Trump Party politicians throwing tantrums over everything from the current president’s efforts to help people to attacking Sesame Street. Never mind having the air-fluffed ego-driven media catering to the fascists by continuing to buy into their false narratives about immigration and the economy. All in all, we all lose because of it.
The Lilly-Livered Yellow-Belly Coward Award for 2021: Attorney General Merrick Garland – This is the guy that people thought would bring law and order back to America. After all, he was the prosecutor of the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing in the 90’s. The one that President Barack Obama thought would make a great Supreme Court justice if not for the repulsive anti-American acts of Senate Majority Leader Mitch “The Bitch” McConnell. But that’s not the guy we ended up with as Attorney General.
Yes, he is slowly prosecuting the January 6th terrorists, but very few of them are going to prison. He hasn’t acted on the advice of the Mueller Report and charge Narcissist former-President Donald Trump with the crimes laid out in that report. He had to be guilt-tripped into acting on the contempt charges filed by Congress against Trump Party mastermind Steve Bannon, and, even then, he let Bannon’s attorneys dictate how their client would “allow himself” to be turned in.
And let’s not forget his prosecutors! They’ve been teasing and teasing indictments and prosecutions connected to Narcissist Trump. “They’re coming”, they say. “Just be patient!”
Except that the prosecutors are going after Narcissist Trump’s organization, not Narcissist Trump. And all of their recent promises of “just wait” are for more of the narcissist’s lackeys, not the narcissist himself.
Remember Saddam Hussein? We bombed the crap out of Iraq over and over in both the Gulf War and the Iraq War and in between both wars, destroying buildings, killing civilians, and it all didn’t matter, because Hussein was defiant. Hell, his own family members were killed, and it didn’t matter to him.
People like that don’t give a crap about anything or anyone other than themselves. We could’ve turned that whole country to glass, eliminated everyone in the whole country other than Hussein, and he would’ve still claimed victory. And he would still be doing it if not for the fact that his own people ended up executing him for his crimes.
Narcissist Trump is the same way. Hell, he and his cohorts let half-a-million Americans die from COVID while in office, and his enablers are still doing everything they can to stop the efforts to vaccinate people and protect them with mask mandates. Half-a-million dead under his watch! That is negligent genocide! We’ve charged and convicted people for crimes against humanity for a fraction of that number! And the narcissist didn’t give a care about those deaths, even when he himself ended up with COVID. Do you think he gives a care about the people who simply work for him?
The only way to bring Narcissist Trump to account is to charge him, to arrest him, and to convict him personally. Not his family members, not his friends or associates, not his enablers, not his employees. Narcissist Trump himself.
That is what an Attorney General worth their stones need to do. We need the Merrick Garland who sent Timothy McVeigh to the death chamber and Terry Nichols to a supermax prison, not the milquetoast who lets violent insurrectionists get probation.
The Unsung Winner of 2021: Infrastructure Week – For years... and I mean years... we have needed to fix our rotting nation. Bridges and roads and buildings and sewers and power grids and Internet services all need to be fixed and upgraded. Obama talked about it during his eight years in office, but Mitch The Bitch blocked every effort to address it. Narcissist Trump had “Infrastructure Week” for about every year of his despotic regime, but it ended up being just bait-and-switch like a cheap Atlantic City huckster.
It took President Joe Biden and a bi-partisan – yes, bi-partisan – effort in Congress to actually deliver what two previous presidents failed to do. But good luck hearing too much about that. The air-fluffed ego-driven media were focused too much on inflation and rising gas prices and anti-vax lawsuits and a concert stampede and the end of Daylight Savings Time and Colin Powell’s funeral and the late Kobe Bryant’s sneakers. Oh, and whether or not it’s good to sleep with your pet.
Really? A pair of sneakers and turning clock back an hour and letting your fur-baby sleep on your bed are more important than finally doing something to fix our rotting nation? Sounds like the media’s priorities also need to be fixed.
The Inflamed Anus Award for 2021: The Fascist Caucus of Congresspeople Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Madison Cawthorn, and Paul Gosar – The antics of this group of “new blood” Trump Party soldiers from this past year are repugnant and even possibly criminal. Some of them have possibly helped the terrorists of January 6th. One of them is looking at possible underage trafficking charges. One of them makes jokes about another member of Congress being a terrorist. One of them posted an animated video depicting him killing another member of Congress and then attacking the President of the United States. Another one openly encourages mothers to raise their kids to be monsters, which was not long before a teenager became a monster and committed mass-murder at school.
The sick part about this is that they really are representatives of their voters, and I don’t just mean as elected legislators. What these legislators say out loud, their voters say amongst themselves. They say these things to their neighbors and their co-workers. And they give money to these legislators to keep doing what they’re doing.
Oh, and taking away their committee and sub-committee seats is not a punishment to them. You’re doing them a favor, because then they can focus all their efforts on their re-election by stirring more trouble to appease their death-cult followers, and to their orange messiah in Mar a Lago. They’re not in this to pass laws or make reasonable change. They’re there to stir trouble and sabotage the system as much as they can.
The Daffy Duck Award For 2021: Quack Senator Rand Paul – Rand Paul has an apparent mad-hate for legitimate doctor Anthony Fauci over COVID. It seems the doctor in name only is doing everything he can to discredit, embarrass, humble, humiliate, and even convict Fauci over everything Fauci has advocated to try to contain the spread of COVID. Maybe it’s because Fauci is an actual doctor, not someone who needed to create his own accreditation board to be certified. Quack Paul has done everything except to challenge Fauci to “step outside”... which, as the quack’s neighbor would attest, would not be good for the asshole senator.
The AWOL Award for 2021: Senator Ted “Cancun” Cruz – So when his constituents were freezing to death in the worst winter storm Texas experienced in ages, and an overwhelmed power grid in sad need for an infrastructure fix caused blackouts, where was Senator Ted Cruz? The two-faced Janus was in toasty Cancun with his family. Yeah, that “Cancun Cruz” nickname will haunt him for a while.
I know, it’s easier to pick on Big Bird than to do the right thing when it comes to your constituents, right Cancun? I mean, you wanted to run for president once upon a time. Presidents do things like check on the well-being of your people, and more than just sending them a postcard.
The Exiled Despot Award for 2021: Narcissist former-President Donald John Trump – In 2016, the media continually asked Narcissist Donald Trump if he would accept the results of the election. His response was “only if I win”.
In 2020, we found out he meant it. He refused to admit defeat, his enablers and death-cult followers did everything they could to keep Joe Biden’s victory from being certified, including a treasonous assault on the Capitol Building on January 6th, and even today he is claiming that he “won” the election that he soundly lost and spreading the “big lie” about the election being “stolen”.
He’s back at Mar a Lago, with his gold toilet, and churning out “press releases” and sending out pretend “envoys” like he’s some dictator-in-exile. His party, formerly the “Republicans” or “GOP”, continue to kowtow to his every wish and whim. Hell, the “Republican” National Committee is paying for his legal bills!
Well it’s time that that particular despot pay for his various crimes. And that will require an attorney general who is not a gutless coward.
The Benito Mussolini Award For The Next-To-Worst Despot in 2021: Florida Fascist Governor Ron DeSantis – Or, as he is often referred to as, DeathSantis. This Italian thug has made it his business to do everything opposite of President Biden. Mask mandates? Outlaw the mandates. Vaccine mandates? Not only does the Italian thug outlaw the mandates, but he is now declaring that he will hire any anti-vax police officer across the country that loses their job. Plus, he has already extended unemployment benefits to those who lose their jobs because they refuse to get vaccinated. You know, from the same political faction that declared that people should not be on unemployment last year because of COVID.
And then there is his personal army. Yes, he is calling for his own army. Not a militia. Not the National Guard. His own army. You know, like how Mussolini had his own army that took over Italy a century ago.
It is said the Italian thug wants to run for president. Well, that’s only if the dictator-in-exile doesn’t run in 2024. Maybe we need to depose this despot as well.
The “Platoon” Award for 2021: Ending the Afghanistan War – As I pointed out in my article in August, there were only two choices when it came to Afghanistan. We could leave, or we could stay endlessly. President Biden chose to go with the plan already set in motion before he even took office, the plan set by his narcissistic predecessor, to get out of Afghanistan, instead of fighting an endless losing war. Biden didn’t meet with the Taliban to negotiate this deal and snub the sitting government. The narcissist did. Biden simply honored the timeline and ignored the wailings of the war-hawks and chickenhawks. The fact that the Taliban were able to take over so rapidly meant that we already lost the effort to bring a democratic government to the country. Just like we did with Vietnam.
It sucks. It stings. But we didn’t “lose” the war. That ended when we found and killed Osama bin Laden years ago. We lost the peace.
Okay, let’s take a break from politics for a bit...
The Worst Corporate Decision of 2021: The Rebranding of Facebook – Facebook was exposed for what it does this year. Facebook’s use of algorithms and collecting data for sale caused harm. It spread hate and division, it encouraged teens to have health issues, and they did it for the almighty profit. It’s not all that they did, but that was serious enough to cause Congress to look into what they do.
So Facebook decided that the best way “out”... was to change its name. You know, like how Google calls itself “Alphabet”. Except Google didn’t do it to get itself out of possible legal trouble.
Facebook wants us to refer to their big corporate entity as “Meta”. But I will continue to call them for what they are... DICK.
The Non-Revolution for 2021: “The Great Resignation” – I say that in quotes because it’s not a “revolution” in an actual sense. There are no leaders, no manifesto promoted, no single overwhelming group telling people to rage-quit their jobs and look for better ones. If anything, they are following the advice from Big Corporate of “if you don’t like what you do, or how you get paid, then quit and find a better job.” They did and they are. And, no, I would not be trying to get a job flipping burgers for $10 an hour either. Been there, done that, and done with thirty years ago.
Like I said back in July... You keep saying “whatever the market will bear” and I’m telling you that “the market” is telling you loud and clear to clean up your act and pay people better if you want them to work for you. Amazon, Macy’s, IKEA, and even Bank of America heard it. Why can’t Burger King and the rest of the “nobody wants to work” liars?
The Blueball Award for 2021: The End of The Playmates – The fraud that called itself Playboy Magazine ended in 2020 during the pandemic, but the centerfold models called Playmates continued. Then 2021 was supposed to be the “quarterly” playmate. Only it ended in the spring, with no announcements whatsoever. No explanation why. Just... nothing. Sure the magazine continues in other countries, but not in America. And now not even the centerfold models exist.
This is a serious kick in the nuts for those who liked the original men’s magazine, even those who read the articles. The fraud that is Playboy is now “rebranding” the “rebranded” “rebrand” yet again to focus on fashion. Those who had the honor of being centerfold models are now relegated to “vintage” status, seen only on calendars and t-shirts, and sometimes on subscription sites with some mention of the word “fan” in it.
The Best Superhero TV Program for 2021: CW’s “Superman and Lois” – It took a decade, but Clark Kent and Lois Lane finally have their own TV show again. And it’s been more than a decade since Superman had his own live-action show. No, “Smallville” still does not count! Even though they have brought the super-team back to Smallville, it’s not the same. This time the Kents have twin sons, and one of them have super-powers. And Superman has a Kryptonian half-brother he didn’t know about.
The most important part is that this series does live up to the title of “Superman and Lois”, which means we get to see Superman. He’s not some abstract idea hinted at but never seen like in “Smallville”. This is the seasoned hero, husband and father, who still flies around the world to save lives. The first and best.
Not only that, but this series has a high-quality cinematic look and feel to it as opposed to the TV hokeyness of the other CW programs. It even has a cinematic aspect ratio. The only complaint from this commentator and life-long fan of Superman is the lack of connection to the rest of the CW-verse, even though it’s supposed to be in the same universe as “Flash” and “Batwoman”. Hopefully that will change for Season 2.
The Second-Best Superhero TV Program for 2021: Marvel’s “Falcon and Winter Soldier” – It was hard to pick one that stood out from the various Disney+ programs that came out this past year. I could have given this to “WandaVision” or “Loki” or “Marvel’s What If”, but personally I think the struggle of Falcon to own the title of Captain America, despite all the other things around him, including finding out there was another super-soldier after Steve Rogers, really gives this show the edge over the others. The speech that Anthony Mackie’s character gave on the last episode about the use of power to prevent another terrorist was truly worthy of Captain America.
The Disappointing Superhero TV Program for 2021: CW’s “Stargirl” – While the second season of the “Earth-2” superhero series included a lot of flashbacks to the original Justice Society, I couldn’t help but be bored by the high school antics and drama. Maybe because Blue Valley is not New York City or even Gotham City, but it’s hard to fathom a small town having so many costumed adventurers after the first JSA and nobody notices. Oh, and they’re all teenagers.
By the way, “Stargirl” wasn’t the only one that disappointed this commentator. It was just the one that I just couldn’t bother to keep watching anymore.
The Best Superhero Movie for 2021: “Zach Snyder’s Justice League” – It took a few years, but Zach Snyder actually redeemed himself with the finished release of his “Justice League”, and slapped Warner Brothers in their faces for their travesty. Yes, it is four hours long, but it is almost worth every minute of it. Almost, because a certain scene near the end just a bit too much.
Snyder needed those four hours for every character to get their due. The real villain is Darkseid, and we get to see him, not just hear about him in a brief blip. Flash gets his story. Cyborg certainly gets his story. The first invasion with Darkseid – not Steppenwolf – is shown, with the actors from “Wonder Woman” included. The clips from the original trailer that were not in the Joss Whedon hack are in this. And if you have access to HBO Max, you not only get to see this movie, but also the “Justice is Grey” version. You know... if you’re into black-and-white movies for no reason other than the director’s fancy for nostalgia.
Watch the Whedon hack, and then Snyder’s four-hour movie, and not only will you see two separate movies, but you’ll also see what happens when a movie is not micromanaged by an incompetent bean-counting amusement park hack executive.
The Not-So-Good Movie of 2021 (tie): “The Suicide Squad” and “Black Widow” – They weren’t “the worst” because COVID really killed the movie industry these past 2 years, but they also weren’t as good as they should have been.
“The Suicide Squad” (not to be confused with “Suicide Squad” but without the “The”) was okay. Not really great. And part of it was that there was a lot of investment to a part of the “Squad” that ended up being ruined because... “spoilers”. We were okay with some of the other members, but it just got ridiculous near the end.
“Black Widow” was okay, but my problem was this: this should not have been released either in 2020 or 2021. This should have been released some time after “Captain America: Civil War” and before “Avengers: Infinity War”. This would have been a really good movie wedged in where it needed to be. But because this is released after “Avengers: Endgame” and we are seeing this after Natasha Romanoff is dead, it comes off hollow. Also the antics of Disney regarding Scarlett Johansson’s pay because it was released on Disney+ was about as despicable as holding off this movie for as long as they did.
The Best Animated Movie for 2021: The Two-Part “Batman: The Long Halloween” – Based on the mini-series of the same name, “The Long Halloween” is a crime story from Batman’s early career, when he wasn’t yet the “master detective” that he is known to be now. A killer is going after crime families, each on a holiday, and nobody knows who it is. The most obvious suspect, the supervillain Calendar Man, is behind bars. So if it isn’t him, who is it? The two-part movie shows the long process of finding out who the killer is, and it also shows the interactive dynamic of Jim Gordon, Harvey Dent, and Batman that was replicated in Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” movie.
This movie stands out because not only of the story, but also because the director was allowed to present the story in the way it was supposed to, even if it’s broken into two parts like was done with “Death of Superman” and “Reign of the Supermen”. They took the time and did the story right.
The Worst Animated Movie for 2021: “Injustice” – We go from the best to the worst of animation here. “Injustice” tried to take the story of a video game and several years of a comic mini-series and compress it all into a typical Warner Brothers animated timeframe. While I have commented before on being sick and tired of the “evil Superman” concept, I still hoped that they would have given “Injustice” the kind of story that it was due, and they clearly didn’t.
The story is rushed. The scenes leading up to Superman turning evil were rushed. The deaths of several key characters – several known characters – have absolutely zero impact. They’re just... dead. Oh well. Other characters that should have had key roles in the movie excused themselves early. Even the ending is a hack job that makes the lamest TV sitcom seem downright profound.
Again, this is why you should not let your production be micromanaged by a time-watching hack executive.
And finally...
The Biggest Winner of 2021: COVID – Because let’s get brutally honest here... despite mask mandates and vaccines and boosters, COVID continues to plague the world. It not only continues, but it has mutated into more deadlier variants, some of which may or may not be immune to the vaccines we have now. And that’s all because of the anti-mask and anti-vax plague rats who refuse to do any of the things that the rest of us have been doing the past two years. COVID is the big winner and continues to survive and thrive because of them.
Well, that’s it for 2021. Hopefully there won’t be anything more between now and late January of 2022. No more domestic terrorist attacks. No more insurrections. One can only hope!
These past few weeks (as of this column) have been a roller-coaster of drama and crazy.
For starters we have the case of Kyle Rittenhouse... the teenager who decided cross state lines with an assault weapon that he was not legally supposed to possess, showed up in the middle of an active protest area, did a little cleaning, did a little first-aid, and then killed two people and almost killed a third with said assault weapon that supposedly he was not old enough to possess. He doesn’t deny killing two people and almost killing a third, he just claimed it was in “self-defense”.
What should have been a slam-dunk for the prosecution ended up with an acquittal and what the wrestling world would call a “screwjob”. The admitted killer goes free and now he’s the darling of the fascists because he killed protesters and got away with it.
And then we have the case of three good ol’ boys who were charged with chasing down and murdering Ahmaud Arbery here in Georgia. Greg McMichael and son Travis McMichael chased the 25-year old Arbery down the street with neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan following behind and videotaping it. They claimed that Arbery was trying to steal something from houses under construction and were trying to make a supposed “citizen’s arrest”. They also claimed “self-defense” because Arbery ran.
The murder happened in February of 2020, but nobody knew about it until someone leaked the video online two months later, and even then it took the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to step up and actually investigate and arrest the three.
Following the Rittenhouse verdict, people were understandably worried about this trial and how it would turn out. Thankfully it wasn’t a repeat, and all three were found guilty of multiple counts of murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and conspiracy to commit murder. They are each facing life in prison. And that’s before they’re facing a federal trail for civil rights violations.
Two trials. One where the guilty got away, and one where they didn’t.
What the hell happened?
Well, you can thank the system for both.
In the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, you have a baby-faced killer who was basically handed his acquittal. You have a judge that barred the prosecution from referring to the victims *as* victims, but also opened the door to condemn them as criminals, rioters, looters, and the judge was seeming hostile to the prosecution, not to mention take time out to attack the media for covering him. Let’s not forget that this defendant was allowed to pick the members of the jury. Sure it was “random”, but him picking the jury members also made it appear that the trial was rigged. And let’s not forget the drama of him on the stand appearing to bawl his eyes out as he recounted the events of that night. That emotional act contradicted the image of him celebrating his criminal act in the company of the Proud Boys terrorist group, which the judge barred the jury from seeing, along with other evidence of past violent activities or tendencies.
By these actions of the judge, he basically set the stage for Rittenhouse to give his performance and then wait for the jury to let him off.
In the case of the three men who were involved in the murder of Arbery, you have a good ol’ boy system that intentionally did everything in its power to keep it quiet and let the three get away with it. You have a murder where nobody mentioned the words “citizen’s arrest” or “self-defense” to the police and there was no prosecution of the three at all until the state got involved, and that was only after the video was released and public outcry forced state involvement. Hell, the district attorney at the time ended up being indicted and arrested after the convictions!
Yes, it seemed to be a slam-dunk case as well. Video evidence, an admission of criminal activity, a claim of “self-defense” that ended up being false. The only reason why this trial ended up with convictions was because there was an outside investigation, and an outside prosecution, and because the general public demanded a trial.
In other words, the system here was forced to have a trial and for the prosecution to do their job.
This commentator has been living in small towns long enough to know that the good ol’ boy system is as corrupt as they come, in any city or state or nation. As I previously described it, the local line of “the way things are” is the original corrupt state. It’s where all of the other criminal activities began. Small town corruption begets big city corruption begets state corruption begets federal, and so on and so forth. It all starts small, in small towns and in small communities.
Let’s get brutally honest here... if there is ever a call for people to be involved with local elections, this is it.
The judge that presided over the Rittenhouse case, Judge Bruce Schroeder, is a long-time incumbent, elected and re-elected over and over, often unopposed after he was first appointed in 1983. Jackie Johnson, the former district attorney in Georgia that was arrested and charged with interfering in the investigation of the murder of Arbery, was also elected and re-elected by the voters since she was first appointed in 2010. The only reason why she is now a former district attorney was because the publicity of this case cost her another re-election. Would these be the only actions they each took in their careers? Probably not. Johnson’s previous cases are now under investigation to see if anything else was swept under the rug.
Local corruption gets you injustice being allowed. Local corruption lets the bad guys go free and it being excused as “that’s just the way things are”. And often these are people who are elected, not just appointed. And elected over and over again.
I’ll let you in on something... in my community there was a local election for an at-large spot on the city council. The incumbent thought it would be a cake-walk. Just get elected and then re-elected. No need to campaign. No need for signs or ads or mailers.
Funny thing, though... come election day, there were just enough people that voted for the name just below his to force a run-off. It could be because of a jacked-up millage rate for homes. It could be because folks are not happy with what is going on in our little community. It could just be because gas prices are going up and inflation is making things more expensive, and people don’t like it. For whatever the reason, we have a situation where this incumbent, who once thought his re-election would be a cakewalk, now has to campaign heavy for a run-off that happens the day after the posting of this article.
Don’t dismiss local elections, folks. Good ol’ boys can be replaced. It happened to Jackie Johnson last year. That’s why she wasn’t in office when she was indicted. It could very well happen to Judge Schroeder when he is up for re-election, if he doesn’t do the smart thing and resign before then. These local elections are only “inevitable” if the voters don’t pay attention to them and don’t bother to vote.
