Dog bites news ...
What people were talking about, month by month, in 2014.
- January: It began when an email from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's deputy chief of staff was unearthed.
Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.
And so, Bridgegate was born.
- February: Boom:
The Seattle Seahawks lowered the Legion of Boom on the Denver Broncos, easily rolling to a 43-8 victory in Super Bowl 2014.
(Confession: I'm a major Seahawks fan, but why not have good news for at least one month?)
- March: Malaysian Airlines flight 370 disappeared somewhere between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing with 239 people on board. When no trace of the plane was found, it caused the traditional media to lose its ever-loving mind.
CNN’s Don Lemon has been entertaining all sorts of theories about the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, including the chance something “supernatural” happened, but on Wednesday night, he actually asked panelists about the possibility a black hole was involved.
- April: A conservative hero was born when a racist, deadbeat rancher decided to wage armed resistance against federal agents.
[Sean] Hannity began his show on Fox last night by promoting a claim from a former Arizona sheriff that federal authorities were planning a midnight raid on Bundy's ranch. Hannity misidentified the sheriff as being from Nevada, didn't mention that the sheriff had been out of office for more than a decade, and overlooked the fact that the previous day the sheriff had said he would use his wife and daughters as human shields to protect himself from the federal government, but Hannity's goal was to entertain his audience by promoting the possibility of an armed conflict between a rancher and the federal government, so he didn't bother worrying about the details.
Head below the fold for May through December ...
- May: The opening of the National September 11 Memorial Museum in New York City got off to a rocky start.
Exit through the gift shop: The tacky decorative cheese plate in the shape of the U.S., with hearts where the 9/11 attacks occurred, is no longer for sale at the National 9/11 Museum's gift shop.
After the backlash about whether some items were crass—like a "Darkness Hoodie" and rescue vests for dogs—museum officials insisted the items were necessary for revenue. But now they are doing an about-face.
- June: This one is still hard to believe. (Too bad it wasn't a precursor of better things to come.)
In one of the most shocking primary upsets of all time, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the second-ranking Republican in the House, has lost to economics professor Dave Brat, a political unknown who was outspent 40-to-1.
- July: A potentially major blow to Obamacare, courtesy of Halbig v. Burwell.
As expected, a three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has voted by a two-to-one margin to defund Obamacare in states which did not set up their own health insurance exchanges. At issue is whether Obamacare allows subsidies in federally established exchanges. [...]
If it were to be upheld, it would essentially destroy Obamacare ...
- August: Michael Brown, an unarmed 18 year old, was gunned down by police in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri. As protests grew over Brown's killing, local, county and state police responded with an over-the-top miliary-like response, while officials promptly set out to demonize the dead teen. In the end, after more than three months, a grand jury declined to indict the shooter.
- September: When a video of Ray Rice, a now-former NFL running back, punching out his then-finance was publicly released, it prompted a nationwide dialogue about violence against women. (This is leaving aside the pathetic response from the NFL to domestic violence, and a reminder about the old adage, "talk is cheap.")
CBS hosted a Thursday night football game last night between the Baltimore Ravens (Ray Rice's now former team) and the Pittsburgh Steelers. During the pre-game broadcast, CBS host James Brown delivered a powerful message for the men and women tuning in, calling for the "comprehensive education of men of what healthy, respectful manhood is all about and it starts with how we view women."
Unfortunately, Fox News was also part of the dialogue
The hosts of Fox & Friends on Monday turned video of NFL player Ray Rice punching his then-girlfriend unconscious in an elevator into a joke, saying that in the future she should “take the stairs.”
- October: With an election just around the corner, Republicans and the conservative media whipped up panic over Ebola in America. As it turns out, it was thanks to Republican budget cuts that we didn't have an Ebola vaccine. From Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institute of Health:
NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001. It's not like we suddenly woke up and thought, 'Oh my gosh, we should have something ready here,'" Collins told The Huffington Post on Friday. "Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would've gone through clinical trials and would have been ready.
- November: Nothing worth mentioning happened in November. Trust me on this. Oh, except the Ebola epidemic in the United States that was going to kill us all miraculously ended.
- December: It never ends.
Protests over the decision not to indict Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson for killing Mike Brown were still happening when a new wave of protests was called up by the decision of a Staten Island, New York, grand jury not to indict police officer Daniel Pantaleo for killing Eric Garner, on video, using a banned chokehold in what was later ruled a homicide.
Please, let's have a happier new year.