Robert Barnes of The Washington Post reviews Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’s year-end 2021 report on the federal judiciary.

In his 2021 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, the chief justice did not mention President Biden’s commission on reforming the Supreme Court or react to nascent congressional proposals to make drastic changes, such as expanding the number of justices or ending their lifetime tenure.

But he said the judiciary’s independence is best maintained by remaining free of interference from the political branches.

“The Judiciary’s power to manage its internal affairs insulates courts from inappropriate political influence and is crucial to preserving public trust in its work as a separate and co-equal branch of government,” Roberts wrote.

In the report, Roberts addressed “topics that have been flagged by Congress and the press over the past year.” Those included the failure of some judges to recuse themselves from cases in which they had a financial interest, and concerns about how the judiciary handles allegations of workplace harassment and discrimination.

Peggy Drexler of CNN says that now everyone must do personal risk assessments of how we live with COVID-19 for the foreseeable future.

Nearly two years in (and for some, longer), few want to return to lockdown or miss out on spending important occasions with family and friends. Most, at least, see the pressing need to keep the economy going and address the social and psychological fallout from prolonged isolation. And many are resigned to the assumption that “we’re all getting it at some point” anyway. While this may be likely, it’s also true that what we know about Omicron is still changing. And it’s important to remember that assessing risk isn’t just about protecting oneself, but also about protecting others — including unvaccinated or unboosted children, older populations and those with autoimmune diseases or other conditions that put them at higher risk.

Certainly, it can be difficult to know what’s safe, beyond canceling everything. Government guidance on masks, isolation periods and tests keep changing. What’s considered “fully vaccinated” may soon change. Right now, “fully vaccinated” is defined by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as having received two shots of either the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or one of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but that definition is currently being debated as some health experts argue that the threshold for “fully vaccinated” should include a booster dose for those who are eligible.

Which is why, like it or not, a certain level of personal risk assessment is necessary for all of us, for the foreseeable future. Guidelines are just that — guidelines. Adhering to them doesn’t guarantee protection, nor does it guarantee that others will adhere to them, too. It’s important to consider your crowd and what you know of them (and are willing to ask of them) before making any decisions in the coming days and weeks.

Lizzie Widdicombe of The New Yorker notes that 2021 was one of the most active years of labor strife in recent times, paying specific attention to the strike by New York City’s yellow cab drivers.

During the second year of the covid-19 pandemic, the social side effects of the virus started to become more apparent. Amid continued mass demonstrations against lockdown measures, and worldwide civil unrest, the U.S. population broke out in hives of labor activism. Workers at corporate behemoths like Amazon and Starbucks attempted to form unions, with mixed results, and workers who were already unionized went on strike in order to demand better wages and working conditions. Employees walked out of John Deere plants in Illinois, Kellogg’s cereal plants in Michigan, Kaiser Permanente health-care clinics in California, and Nabisco and Frito-Lay snack factories in Oregon and Kansas. (The energy even found its way to this very publication, where, this summer, newly unionized employees reached a deal after two and a half years of negotiations.)

What was happening? Stephanie Luce, a labor scholar at cuny, explained that covid-19 appears to have lit a match beneath at least a decade’s worth of late-stage-capitalist tinder. “Wages have been mostly stagnant since the economic crash of 2008,” Luce said, adding, “People have been seeing the quality of their jobs deteriorate.” Then came the virus, and, all of a sudden, a dismal situation became life-threatening. Health-care and manufacturing workers found themselves ordered to work double shifts in dangerous conditions. Earlier this month, six people died at an Amazon warehouse, in Illinois, and another eight workers were killed at a candle factory, in Kentucky, after the facilities were hit by a tornado. (In both cases, employees allege that they were not allowed to leave work before the storms hit.) Meanwhile, corporate profits have continued to roll in. Luce explained the mindset of many employees this year: “They’re thinking, This company is making millions—billions—during a pandemic. Management’s not coming in—they’re in their second homes, while I’m here risking my life. For a lot of people, that was it.”

Walter C. Stern writes for The Hill that teachers of American history need to reclaim the idea of “patriotism” from the right wing when teaching the truth about American history.

The need to cultivate teachers and students who are brave — and patriotic — enough to think critically about the nation’s past could not be more urgent. Without independent thinkers who care enough about the nation’s well-being to wrestle with, rather than retreat from, its complex history, the country is ill-prepared to tackle current and future challenges. A society, after all, can’t solve problems whose existence it refuses to acknowledge.

That’s why Americans must reclaim patriotic education from the right. Universities have a key role to play here. Universities can train teachers who are uniquely positioned to do exactly what Republicans say they want to do: develop patriotic citizens. I know, because it’s how I and countless other professors teach.

[…]

The best classes end with more questions than answers: When does governmental power over education preserve liberty, and when does it suppress liberty? Why have some emphasized the university’s responsibility to prepare students for jobs, while others, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, emphasized its capacity “to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowledge of life?” What is the purpose of education, and how can people in a democratic society determine the ends it should serve as well as the means for achieving those ends?

Marianne Lavelle and Nicholas Kusnetz of Inside Climate News discuss some of the executive actions that the Biden Administration has taken in lieu of the stasis of the Build Back Better legislation.

Although environmental groups for the most part are continuing their push for Build Back Better, many activists and Biden’s own team are focusing on what the president can do without new legislation from Congress.

“Using executive authority—and boldly—may be the only way that Biden will get anything done, as long as Manchin (and, perhaps, [Sen.] Kyrsten Sinema [D-Ariz.]) block effective legislative action, alongside a solid phalanx of fifty Republicans,” wrote Bill McKibben, founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, in The New Yorker.

There are signs that the courts may stand in the way of some executive actions by Biden, especially on big items like clean power. But from the start, Biden has talked about mobilizing an “all-of-government approach” to fight the climate crisis. Here are some examples of how his administration has begun to implement climate policy that have not gotten as much attention as the fight on Capitol Hill. Climate activists say in nearly every case, Biden could be doing even more.

Lili Bayer of POLITICO Europe writes that upcoming parliamentary elections in several European Union member states will be critical in halting the degradation of the rule of law.

Hungary will hold a parliamentary election this spring, and for the first time, Orbán’s opposition has united in an effort to pose a real challenge to his power. While the alliance grapples with internal divisions and an uneven playing field, the prime minister’s opponents hope to capitalize on concerns over high-level corruption and economic challenges to reach undecided voters.  

An opposition win would change not only rhetoric and policies in Budapest but also the dynamics in the Council of the European Union, where Hungary has often played the role of the rebel. It would also have geopolitical implications for the region: Orbán has nurtured ties with Beijing and Moscow, and a new government would likely make a U-turn and align more closely with the EU, the United States and NATO. An Orbán victory, on the other hand, would cement the veteran leader’s power and allow him to continue building an alliance of far-right and Euroskeptic forces across the Continent.

In Poland, 2022 could bring intensified competition between Law and Justice and its rivals, in particular former Prime Minister Donald Tusk. With tensions deepening between Warsaw and Brussels, the rival camps will likely clash on both rule of law at home and policy toward the EU. Law and Justice — which, unlike its Hungarian counterpart, depends on occasionally unpredictable coalition partners to govern — will face internal and external pressure ahead of an election expected in 2023, if the ruling alliance doesn’t collapse earlier.

Finally today, the Drunk New Year’s Gays of CNN has become must–watch programming for New Year’s Eve.

Ya think?

I’m not a big Andy Cohen fan but that was EPIC.

Don’t think that Don Lemon was outdone by Cohen, because he wasn’t!

I only wish that Lemon could have been a little more explicit, shall we say, than “you can kiss my behind.” Maybe he wasn’t drunk enough? 

But Lemon wasn’t finished.

It wasn’t just Lemon and Cohen spouting off, either.

And Anderson Cooper could do nothing but giggle as only Anderson Cooper giggles, of course.

We’ve moved far past the days of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.

Have a great day, everyone, and Happy New Year!