Like everything at West Point, it’s all organized and planned. According to the superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy, Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland, while the Corps of Cadets is away this winter break, the beautiful campus overlooking the Hudson is being stripped of its shameful Confederate symbols.

New Census Bureau numbers released last week reveal an unmistakable trend: High-tax blue states are losing residents to low-tax red states.

It was two years ago, Dec. 2, 2020, when Donald Trump, angling for anything to undo his loss to Joe Biden, claimed — with no justification or facts — that Dominion voting machines were rigged and, “we have to go to paper. Maybe it takes longer, but the only secure system is paper.”

The internet and social media have provided organizations and people with a great many windows on the world compared to the three major television stations of the 1950s.

The arrival of COVID-19 and the societal disruptions that accompanied it understandably drove a lot of Americans to drink. But even as life has returned to more or less normal this year, the drinking binge has continued. The consumer spending statistics compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis are the timeliest estimates of alcohol consumption available. They show November’s spending on alcoholic beverages, adjusted for inflation and seasonal spending patterns, to have been 3% higher than a year earlier and 15% higher than just before the pandemic. (1)

Few countries can be said to have truly responded adequately to the deadly threat of the coronavirus, and ours certainly isn’t near the top, with a poisonous fixation on individual liberty that shot even basic collective efforts to ward off the crisis.

Los Angeles voters approved a ballot measure in November to address the city’s housing crisis, which has left tens of thousands of people with no place to live, many others priced out of the area, and prompted recently elected mayor, Karen Bass, to declare a state of emergency. The measure, known as United to House LA, or ULA, is designed to provide both immediate protections to vulnerable tenants and to fund longer-term housing solutions.

In many ways, 2022 might seem like it was a pretty bad year for Americans on the political right. After all, the year saw record budget deficits, spending bills loaded with corporate welfare, a legally dubious student loan scheme, and disappointing election results for the Republican Party.

Passengers are missing flights, unable to rebook passage to visit with friends and loved ones. Thousands of pieces of luggage remain strewn about airport lobbies. Airline and airport employees still struggle with the anger and frustration of customers.

I will miss science Twitter.

Let’s get right to the point: If and when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Chuck Grassley ever again try to prop up their bona fides as supporters of U.S. troops and our allies abroad, they should be laughed out of the room.

Nonstop cable news presenters were agog and aghast. They warned us, last Wednesday, that we were about to witness an epic moment. Their news worlds were about to collide.

As the demise of the FTX crypto empire unfolds — on Twitter, in bankruptcy proceedings, in congressional hearings and potentially in criminal court — lawmakers and regulators are grappling with a question: What, if anything, should they do to civilize a market so rife with abuse?

On Dec. 2, Gary Rasor, an 83-year-old worker at Home Depot, died from injuries he sustained after being violently pushed to the ground while on the job. Rasor had worked at the store as an “associate” for nine years, and celebrated his 83rd birthday in the hospital just days after the attack.

Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee were so busy patting themselves on the back after Wednesday’s partisan vote to publicly release former President Donald Trump’s tax returns that they forgot one thing: explaining why this is legally necessary or proper.

It’s the time of year when we see a lot more mail trucks trundling through neighborhoods as letter carriers work hard to deliver everyone’s holiday cards and packages on time.

The older I get, the more I find myself drawn to the Christmas songs that have a touch of melancholy to them. Songs that acknowledge the complexity of Christmas emotions. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” “Christmastime Is Here.” And, of course, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

The best gift you can give your loved ones this year? A COVID-free holiday season.

We talk a lot in these pages about self-determination, whether it be for the people of Iran, China, Ukraine or elsewhere where the preferences of ordinary folks are made secondary to grander designs by self-appointed leaders (including certain U.S. leaders who would like to choose their voters as opposed to the other way around).