With the retirement of Barbara Walters, there is a huge vacuum to be filled.
So Wide World of News proudly presents:
MARK HALPERIN’S TEN MOST FASCINATING PEOPLE OF 2021 (or, at least, of December 10, 2021):
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10. Basketball heir and now buzzer-beating legend Ron Harper
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We now return to MARK HALPERIN’S TEN MOST FASCINATING PEOPLE OF 2021 (or, at least, of December 10, 2021).
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9. The New Yorkers changing America forever
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8. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, making the most aggressive – and doomed – prebuttal of the month
In a memo issued Thursday night, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged lawmakers not to be spooked by new inflation numbers and a pending analysis of President Joe Biden’s social spending bill set to be released tomorrow.
The memo, titled “Fiscal Responsibility and the Build Back Better Act,” was sent to the Senate and obtained by POLITICO. In it, Yellen delivered a prebuttal to two government reports that could impact key senators’ support for the social spending plan serving as a centerpiece of Biden’s economic agenda. The first of those reports is the consumer price index (CPI) for November, which is expected to show a rise in inflation. The second is the Congressional Budget Office, which is looking at the longer-term monetary impact of the Build Back Better plan, if the programs in it were not set to expire, as they currently are under the legislative language.
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7. Jussie Smollett, the committer of the most inexplicable crime of all time – and the most inexplicable failure to plead guilty
CHICAGO (AP) — Jussie Smollett’s conviction for lying to police about a racist, homophobic attack came nearly three years after his report of a horrifying hate crime quickly became part of a polarized political landscape, with people — including the president of the United States — weighing in from all over.
A prosecutor said Thursday’s verdict was “a resounding message by the jury that Mr. Smollett did exactly what we said he did” — recruit two brothers to fake an attack so it could be recorded by a surveillance camera and posted on social media for publicity.
The brothers testified that the former “Empire” actor paid them $3,500 for the hoax and gave them lines to yell, including about “MAGA country,” an apparent reference to then-President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. (Associated Press)
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6. First Lady Jill Biden, holding the American Family together
Jill Biden is dismissing any concerns about President Biden's mental fitness, calling them "ridiculous."
"I think that's ridiculous," Biden says in an interview for this week's "CBS Sunday Morning." Portions of the sit-down at Camp David with Rita Braver were released Thursday.
Biden shook her head as Braver asked about some recent polling that the CBS News journalist described as showing "quite a few Americans have some questions about the president's current mental fitness." (The Hill)
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5. Centrist Superstar and embodiment of actual brotherly love, Michael Smerconish
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4. Letitia James, changing the game
Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, announced on Thursday that she was ending her campaign for governor and running instead for re-election, a surprising move that upended the high-profile governor’s race and further solidified Gov. Kathy Hochul’s standing….
The announcement came on the day that it became known that Ms. James’s office intended to subpoena former President Donald J. Trump to testify in a civil fraud investigation. (New York Times)
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3. Vice President Kamala Harris
Peggy Noonan comes to bury the Veep (and her boss), but in the clever guise of giving her advice, in this essential read:
The president is old and his judgment questionable; she seems out of her depth. We will have another three years of this? It is also dangerous: We don’t want their weakness to become America’s weakness.
And so some thoughts on how she might improve her situation….
She loves the politics of politics too much, and not the meaning. When people meet with her they come away saying that what she cares about is the politics of the issue, not the issue itself. But even as she’s obsessed with the game of national politics she’s not so far particularly good at it….
[H]ere’s something she could do for Mr. Biden to be useful to his larger project. She could lend what skills she has to the public presentation of the administration’s stands. Mr. Biden isn’t strong there; he’s uneven in his attempts to explain and advance policy thinking.
To do this Ms. Harris would have to decide to become serious—to inform and immerse herself, meet with party thinkers, study her briefing books. Her current strategy, to the extent it exists, appears to rely on her sense of her own personal charisma—delighted laughter, attempts to connect personally, to convey zest.
She should speak instead with sincerity and depth. She shouldn’t confuse Happy Warrior with Hungry Operative.
Ms. Harris has never seemed especially earnest. This would be a good time for earnestness.
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2. Incoming Gotham City Hizzoner Eric Adams, who many Democrats already tout as their best hope to save the city, the nation, and the party (before he has even started the job!)
An impassioned Mayor-elect Eric Adams delivered a tough-on-crime speech in Manhattan Thursday, while repeating his warning to Black Lives Matter leader Hawk Newswome not to mess with New York.
“We’re not going to surrender to those who are saying we’re going to burn down New York. Not my city,” Adams said at a Police Athletic League event at the Harvard Club…
“We’re not going to have a city where anarchists come from outside our city and go into a community such as Queens and destroy the community for their own selfish needs he desires,” Adams said.
The retired NYPD captain received a warm reception from the largely Republican crowd that included former New York Republican Party Chairman Ed Cox, billionaire business mogul John Catsimatidis, actor and former talk show host Tony Danza and former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton. (New York Post)
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1. Donald Trump, because, love him or hate him, let’s just all accept that he is going to hold the #1 slot on our annual list in perpetuity
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Thursday against an effort by former President Donald Trump to shield documents from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
In a 68-page ruling, the three-judge panel tossed aside Trump’s various arguments for blocking through executive privilege records that the committee regards as vital to its investigation into the run-up to the deadly riot that was aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Judge Patricia Millett, writing for the court, said Congress had a “uniquely vital interest” in studying the events of Jan. 6 and that President Joe Biden had made a “carefully reasoned” determination that the documents were in the public interest and that executive privilege should therefore not be invoked. Trump also failed to show any harm that would occur from the release of the sought-after records, Millett wrote.
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