The ordinarily fluent and unperturbed Justice Elena Kagan seemed, judging from the transcript, to be sputtering a bit in the oral argument of the Supreme Court's case challenging the racial quotas and preferences used in admissions by the University of North Carolina.

Recently an unarmed 29-year-old African American, Tyre Nichols, was brutally beaten to death by five Black Memphis police officers. They were all charged with murder. The Victimizers & Victim were Black, the Memphis Police Chief is Black, as is the Assistant Police Chief. The death could be attributed to many things, but no sooner was the death announced than accusations of "systemic racism" surfaced.

Once again, the nation is traumatized by horrible video of police brutally beating to death a Black man. Need I note the victim was Black? Would we be less or more traumatized if the victim were white? But the rule seems to be the victims are Black. . . and in this case, the police officers were Black.

The fissure began in 2020 – when schools across the country closed at the beginning of the pandemic. Parents, often working in the same room where their children were being educated over Zoom, began to see just what their children were being taught, and how – and they didn't like what they saw. Attitudes changed almost overnight, and parents now overwhelmingly believe the system needs to be changed.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who leads the weaponization panel, suggested the possibility of subpoenas after the House Judiciary send out several letters requesting interviews with potential witnesses as part of their investigations.

In the wake of the recent release of the shocking and "colluding" internal "Twitter Files" by new owner Elon Musk, let's revisit former President Obama's warning last April about the spread of "misinformation": "You just have to flood a country's public square with enough raw sewage. You just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt, plant enough conspiracy theories that citizens no longer know what to believe." Hmm...

Former President Trump – for now – seems to have had more "classified" documents at Mar-a-Lago than President Biden has had at his (various) homes in Delaware. But other than that, the comparisons between the two, contrary to popular punditry, hardly favor Biden. For starters, we seem to forget that for much of Mr. Biden's developing controversy, Joe Biden's own team is investigating Biden. And, he did not "self-report."

There are few things Democrats love more than themselves, but one of those things is Ukraine. I support Ukraine’s sovereignty and all of that. But what I’m not willing to do for Ukraine, or nearly any other country for that matter, is to go broke in defense of them. Sorry, a corrupt eastern European country isn’t worth it to me. But it is to Democrats, especially Joe Biden.

Nearly 100 terrorism suspects were stopped by U.S. Customs & Border Protection in 2022. Each day across our entire southern border, 1,000s of migrants willfully break our laws, with no end in sight – 100s of 1,000s more have slipped into our country undetected. Cartels are richer and more emboldened than ever, and Americans have never been more vulnerable to fentanyl and criminals flowing into our country.

The New York Times and other major publications and networks have been unwilling to admit that they published "mis-information" and fostered false narratives with baseless charges that Russian bots had somehow swung the 2016 election to Donald Trump. In his review of "The Twitter Files," reporter Matt Taibbi (whose roots are on the political Left,) admitted the charges were baseless, as have left-leaning Twitter executives – in private.

Left-wing Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador – often referred to as AMLO – recently praised a visiting Joe Biden by saying: "Just imagine: There are 40 million Mexicans in the U.S. – 40 million who were born in Mexico or who are the children of people born in Mexico!" One sure sign of historic national decline is the collective inability of a government and its people to defend their borders – and national integrity.

The left’s increasingly outlandish tendencies are starting to resemble those of the Taliban. The comparison is rarely made, however, because the similarities are subtle – and are done slowly, like heating up a frog slowly in boiling water so it doesn’t realize what’s happening. There are no executions, no hands are chopped off. Instead the left slowly removes the rights of conservatives, while the left is free to do what it wishes in the name of “doing good.”

Joe Biden stole classified documents, and now we're finding out his Dept. of Justice has been hiding Joe’s theft of classified property. But, has the Biden White House lost its support from the media in the past week? All three broadcast networks reported – rather angrily – about Biden's obstruction after he campaigned on “transparency.”

With the advantage of a week of hindsight, the resolution of the House Republican's Speaker fight was always pretty clear. Yes, Kevin McCarthy had to – and was always going to – compromise to be elected Speaker. And yes, the "Chaos Caucus" Rebels were also always going to accept a compromise at the end of the standoff. In the end, the new rules were passed, and in retrospect... we're going to be off to strong start.

The Left has gone mad over former President Donald J. Trump - past, present, and future. ​​​​​The current Democratic Party and NeverTrump "conservatives" assumed that Trump was and remains so obviously toxic that they do not have to define exactly what his evil entails.

"Swalwell can’t get a security clearance in the private sector. I’m not going to give him a government security clearance," said newly minted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, making good on his promise to strip Democrats Ilhan Omar, Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell of their committee assignments in the House of Representatives. "Schiff has lied to the American public. We will not allow him to be on the Intel Committee either.”

The truth is that Congress is broken for the reasons that Cong. Chip Roy (R-TX) and others have been stating during the past week's Speaker Debate – under authoritarian Speaker Nancy Pelosi's rule rank-and-file members have been sidelined in the Legislative Process in favor of the Leadership Elites. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) could become a transformational conservative leader thanks to this fight.

If the House takes a week to sort out the next Speaker, who cares? If it takes a month, who cares? Yes, I want the investigations to start and the subpoenas to fly, but it doesn’t really matter when that starts, just that it does. And it will.

My heart is usually with the Members of Congress who are so annoyed by the rest of the GOP that they do or say stupid things just out of simple frustration. But that doesn’t make what they say and do any less stupid. Maybe I’m too cynical, I don’t know for sure, but now that we’ve established the fact that 2022 sucked I fear 2023 will be the House GOP fighting among itself – but we can always hope. 

Some surprises, such as the weakening of Russia and the chastening of China, are good news. But others – like America's current economic conundrums – leave us puzzled and most likely unprepared for the surprises of 2023. Things didn't quite work out as many people had expected in 2022... on just about every point across the political spectrum.