What's left to say about 2024?

I can't help but say it...but here it is: 2024 was a year where, here in the United States, hate and bigotry won out at the polls.

And the price of eggs was used as a cover.

We, as a group, put a convicted felon back in the White House...a man who called for an insurrection when he didn't win the 2020 election...a man who, like his runningmate, ran with the nonetheless-debunked belief that immigrants in Springfield, OH, were eating their neighbors' dogs and cats...a man who won't take responsibility for his actions.

77 million voters showed they'd rather stick a twice-impeached man back in the Oval Office than put a woman of any color in there.

Yes...I admit that the Democrats would've been better off running a brokered convention at Chicago's United Center last August and finding Joe Biden's successor at the confab. (The leaders of America's legacy media probably would've trotted out the old "Dems in Disarray" headline.) And things would've been better if Merrick Garland and his people would've acted sooner (like on 1-20-2021) to make sure an insurrectionist never again held the nuclear codes...even if Garland would've been accused of doing this for political motivation.

I can't help but think the rest of the world looks at us Americans in light of last year's election and comes away feeling that our laws are toothless.

I remember what happened to Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro and how that country's government dealt with him.

Power-abusing Bolsonaro lost his presidential reelection bid in 2022...and went on to cast unfounded doubts about Brazil's electronic voting system. So...in June 2023, that country's top electoral court ruled him ineligible to run for any political office until 2030.

What if America's government officials had mustered the courage to do the same to a former reality-TV host?

Instead, starting on 1-20-2025, we'll be taking a ride many of us just might regret...the kind of ride we've been on before.

We'll see what happens.

I've got my mind made up

I'm just going to come right out and say it. My White House choice for 2024 is...Vice President Kamala Harris. Okay...I've probably lost some followers for making this decision. Here's my reasoning: 1. If Harris wins on 11-5-2024, it's the one way that all Americans of voting age, regardless of their party affiliation (or lack of one), will be able to cast future ballots. 2. The former US senator from California wants to end the filibuster so that (among other things) the Roe vs. Wade precedent (1973-2022) on abortion can be restored. (Okay...how would you like it if a politician got between you and your doctor when you needed to make a decision that could save your own life?) 3. She doesn't want to raise taxes on those Americans who earn less than $400,000 a year. In addition, she'd roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest US citizens...cuts that were signed into law in 2017. And the tax rate for long-term capital gains for millionaires would go to 28%. 4. Harris would sign the bipartisan border security bill into law...you know, the Senate deal that fell by the wayside after Donald Trump told House Republicans to abandon it so that he'd have something to campaign on. 5. I like her proposal to get 3 million new rental units/affordable homes built...and her proposal to provide first-time homebuyers with $25,000 each for down payments (as well as legislation to outlaw new forms of price fixing by corporate landlords). 6. Harris is also in favor of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act (to prevent states from passing laws that make it harder for non-White people to cast ballots), the Freedom to Vote Act (designed to set standards for early voting and voting by mail...as well as to curb gerrymandering), and the Equality Act (extending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation). 7. And the former California attorney general advocates term limits for Supreme Court justices as well as a code of ethics for SCOTUS members. What's more, Harris wants to end America's record as the only major country without a national paid-family-and-medical-leave policy. You can check this and more out by going to politifact.com and checking out its article on Harris' 2024 campaign promises. I don't want to sit this one out...and if you're a voting-age American, I hope you won't sit this one out, either.

Good enough for me...and then some!

He'd double the tax rate for nonworking millionaires, eliminate the lower rates on dividends and capital gains for those Americans who annually make a million bucks or more, and boost the top tax rate to almost 40%. He'll continue to champion America's constantly-marginalized people. Once in the driver's seat, he'll start a pandemic testing board to scale up and allocate nationwide testing. He also wants to launch a state-and-local-government emergency fund to provide medical supplies, hire more health-care workers, give certain essential workers overtime pay, end cost sharing for COVID-19 testing and treatment, and start up a national public health jobs corps. (Who knows? Maybe these moves could mean 100,000 people doing contract tracing.) Scientists would be taken seriously. Period. His housing plan would cut child poverty by 33%, reduce racial opportunity gaps, and would even help with middle-income housing affordability, especially in cities on the two coasts. And then there's his economic plan: In it, $400 billion over a four-year period would go to American-made materials and services. At the same time, the plan would earmark $300 billion more for US-based research and development...like electric cars, artificial intelligence, etc. The plan also boasts a 100-day "supply chain review" to get federal agencies to choose American-made medical goods and supplies. It'd close up all the loopholes in the government's "Buy American" clauses. And his economic plan would restore the jobs that the coronavirus pandemic has taken away. In addition, the plan would fire up an additional five million gigs. He'd build on the Affordable Care Act and on the Violence Against Women Act...and these moves would help level the playing field for America's physically-challenged people. And earlier this week, he found his runningmate: US Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA). Well, there you are: A ticket whose members have been fighting for years for America's rank-and-file citizens. On 11-3-2020 (better yet, earlier than that as long as I can vote by mail), I'll be more than happy to cast my ballot for former Vice President Joe Biden and his pick for vice president, Harris. How about you?