2016 In Review

NBC News reports: A bipartisan duo on the Jan. 6 committee on Monday rolled out legislation aimed at preventing future attempts to overturn elections, and House leaders are eyeing a vote as early as this week. The Presidential Election Reform Act, unveiled by Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., centers on overhauling the Electoral Count Act, an archaic …

Enjoy the acid dripping from this ruling: In moving to enforce the Agreement settling her 2016 lawsuit, failed presidential candidate Jill Stein asks me to bar the use of almost 4,000 voting machines, thus making it impossible for Philadelphia to participate in the 2020 presidential election. This is of a piece with the 2016 action itself: Stein’s eleventh-hour voting machine …

The Daily Beast reports: Former interim Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile claims Hillary Clinton secretly took over the DNC before she had won the Democratic primary. In an excerpt from her new book published by Politico, Brazile said she promised Clinton’s opponent, Bernie Sanders, that she would get to the bottom of whether Clinton had “rigged the nomination process.” …

CNN reports: Yevgeny Prigozhin is a Russian oligarch dubbed “chef” to President Vladimir Putin by the Russian press. In 2002, he served caviar and truffles to President George W. Bush during a summit in St. Petersburg. Before that, he renovated a boat that became the city’s most exclusive restaurant. But his business empire has expanded far beyond the kitchen. US …

Yahoo News reports: The Russians who worked for a notorious St. Petersburg “troll factory” that was part of Vladimir Putin’s campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election were required to watch the “House of Cards” television series to help them craft messages to “set up the Americans against their own government,” according to an interview broadcast Sunday (in Russian) with …

UPDATE: Things are now underway. The confirmation hearing for billionaire anti-LGBT Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos is allegedly starting any minute, but it appears the proceedings may be been delayed somewhat by the Chelsea Manning story, which is dominating all networks at this writing. Watch below.

Another action-packed year has come and gone for this here website thingy, which in a few months will mark its 13th anniversary. I want to sincerely thank all of you, longtime JMGers and newbies alike, for coming along on the insane roller coaster that 2016 has been. We finished the year at right around 40 million pageviews, a number I …

Entertainment Weekly reviews: 2016 started out innocently enough — but after a number of tragic celebrity deaths and one of the most divisive elections in history, at least one collective is categorizing the year as a horror movie. YouTube user Friend Dog Studios has created a condensed representation of tthe year through a trailer for 2016: The Movie. The clip, …

And Hillary Clinton is the most admired woman. This is probably what has Cheeto Mussolini in a dither this morning. The Washington Post reports: Since Gallup began asking Americans the people they admired the most, there’s been a consistent pattern: Whoever was president or president-elect was almost always the man the country admired the most. The most admired woman? Usually …

Bloomberg reports: In a year when populist voters reshaped power and politics across Europe and the U.S., the world’s wealthiest people are ending 2016 with $237 billion more than they had at the start. Triggered by disappointing economic data from China at the beginning, the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union in the middle and the election of billionaire …

Late last month Merriam-Webster issued a tweet basically begging people to look up anything but “fascism” – which was then leading their look-ups list for 2016. Today we get the final “winner.” The Independent reports: Was 2016 a dream or a nightmare? Try something in between: “surreal,” which is US dictionary Merriam-Webster’s word of the year. Meaning “marked by the …

CNN reports: President Barack Obama asserted Friday that a September confrontation with his Russian counterpart prompted Moscow to cease its hacking of the US election. During a meeting on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in China, Obama said he insisted President Vladimir Putin “cut it out” and told him “there were going to be serious consequences if …

Billboard recaps: There’s no two ways about it: 2016 was a crap year. How crap? Just ask Stephen Colbert, Michael Stipe and James Franco, who got together on “The Late Show” on Thursday night (Dec. 15) to remake R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” as a eulogy for a rough 12 …

Via Mashable: Google has posted its top lists of most popular topics in 2016, and a lot of it is a painful reminder of all the great people that left us this year. In overall global searches, Prince and David Bowie are in fourth and sixth place. Google lists a category called “Losses” this year, and there the two rock …

Via Mediaite: There’s a new celebrity PSA out tonight featuring some big-name actors asking members of the electoral college to do the right thing and step in to vote their conscience (a.k.a. not Donald Trump). Martin Sheen, Richard Schiff, Debra Messing, James Cromwell, BD Wong, Bob Odenkirk, Moby, and some other big names all appear in the video for Unite …

The Guardian reports: US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in last month’s presidential election to boost Donald Trump’s bid for the White House, according to reports. A secret CIA assessment found that Russian operatives covertly interfered in the election campaign in an attempt to ensure the Republican candidate’s victory, the Washington Post reported, citing officials briefed on the …

Nearly 20 million views already. Fuse recaps: This year was dominated by YouTube content creators taking their talents from the video-sharing service to various outlets on social media, beauty companies, television and more. So to highlight all of this blossoming buzz, YouTube released their annual YouTube Rewind that references 2016’s biggest memes, trends and videos. It opens up with the …

From TIME Magazine: This is the 90th time we have named the person who had the greatest influence, for better or worse, on the events of the year. So which is it this year: Better or worse? The challenge for Donald Trump is how profoundly the country disagrees about the answer. It’s hard to measure the scale of his disruption. …

CBS News reports: Meghan Trainor appeared on “CBS This Morning” to announce the nominees for the biggest categories at the 2017 GRAMMY Awards on Tuesday. Adele and Beyonce dominated the categories: They were both up for three of the four big awards. Trainor stayed mum on GRAMMY predictions, admitted to “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King that she’s now in …

The Raleigh News & Observer reports: The humor publication MAD Magazine has named Gov. Pat McCrory to its annual “20 Dumbest List” because of his support for House Bill 2. The December issue spoofs McCrory as a “stall cop” with an image of the governor in a security officer uniform, a nod to the Paul Blart “Mall Cop” movies. “Keeping …