As you’ll already know if you’ve subscribed to it, the Current Affairs Biweekly News Briefing just reached its 100th edition. Released every Tuesday and Friday (barring emergencies), the News Briefing is a comprehensive roundup of the world’s news, straight to your email inbox. It informs you about stories the corporate media has overlooked or buried, along with political campaigns and protests worth getting involved in, all with a sprinkling of jokes and animal facts to lighten the mood. If we say so ourselves, it’s a hell of a thing. We’ve made the entire back catalog up to May 10 free to read, to give you a taste of the delights a subscription offers. If you like what you see, why not click this convenient neon-pink “subscribe” link?

In honor of our 100th edition, we decided to bring you something a bit different. Over the course of our first 99 News Briefings we’ve encountered numerous joys and horrors. We thought that we’d take a look back at some of the most shocking happenings, admirable heroes, and dastardly villains we’ve encountered so far. And what better way to honor them than through an awards show? That’s why we bring to you the first-ever Current Affairs News Briefing BRIEFY AWARDS!

Let’s begin with our first category:

GREATEST INNOVATOR IN POLITICAL CORRUPTION

• There is really no other choice here besides Congressman George Santos, who took the phrase “fake it ‘til you make it” to heart by fabricating basically every aspect of his career and personal life. This is actually not what brought him down, though. Rather, he flew a bit too close to the sun by, according to a federal indictment, stealing the credit card information of various Republican donors and starting a fake nonprofit whose proceeds he used to buy designer clothing, among other things. (In the United States Congress, being corrupt is perfectly ordinary; the only real crime is being corrupt too loudly, and drawing attention to all the others.) (Oct. 13, 2023)

(dis)honorable mentions: 

• Senator Bob Menendez, and the many bars of gold from shady Egyptian businessmen that were found in his closet. (In a really astonishing bit of excuse-making, Menendez tried to argue he had “intergenerational PTSD” from when his parents fled revolutionary Cuba in the 1950s, which caused him to hoard valuable objects. He might as well have just blamed the dog.)  (Sept. 26, 2023 and Jan. 5, 2024)

• North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, who hacked his way onto the GOP debate stage by paying voters with $20 gift cards to donate to him so he’d reach the small-dollar donations threshold. “Burgumania” may never have taken off, but we’ll always remember him for this. (July 14, 2023)

• Representative Henry Cuellar, who was charged with accepting around $600,000 in bribes from Azerbaijan during its campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Yikes. (May 7, 2024)
• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was accused of “hijacking” his office to do various favors for one of his top campaign donors, but narrowly avoided impeachment. Even the corruption, it seems, is bigger in Texas. (September 8, 2023)

MOST DYSTOPIAN ROBOTIC ENTITY

• This award goes to the newly available flamethrower dog, from the appropriately named company ThrowFlame, which can be purchased in 48 American states. (Apr. 26, 2024)

(dis)honorable mentions:

• Eric Adams’ NYPD Robot, which patrols the subways for crime at a blistering three mph. (Sept. 26, 2023)

• AI Putin, who appeared at a news conference to ask the real Putin about his opinions on the dangers of artificial intelligence. (Dec. 15, 2023)

• “Ask Jesus,” the Twitch chatbot which allows to ask an artificially generated Jesus any question you like. (Aug. 4, 2023)

• nhPredict, the AI that the UnitedHealth Group used to generate lowball estimates for how much care elderly patients “should” require and deny anything above the threshold. (Nov. 21, 2023)

• The holographic versions of KISS that will no doubt haunt the world’s concert venues long after the band itself had departed this earthly plane. (Dec. 5, 2023)

WORST MAGAZINE IN AMERICA

• The Atlantic by a mile. Not close! They blew the other contestants out of the water.

MOST DISTURBING PIECE OF STATE LEGISLATION

Over the course of the News Briefing, we’ve seen lots of legislation that cracks down on free expression. But none is quite as insane as the proposed bill in Florida which automatically makes it defamation to accuse someone of racism, homophobia, or transphobia, even if it’s true. (Jan 9, 2024)

(dis)honorable mentions

• Florida’s other law removing mentions of climate change from many state statutes. (Apr. 12, 2024)

• Florida’s OTHER other law that explicitly forbids local governments from requiring workplace protections against extreme heat. (Florida really is the ‘96 Chicago Bulls of bad laws.) (Mar. 12, 2024)

• Texas’ law allowing it to deport undocumented immigrants without input from the federal government.  (Mar. 22, 2024)

• Idaho’s law banning people from helping pregnant minors cross state lines to get abortions. (Sept. 5, 2023)

• Tennessee’s ban on drag performances. (July 14, 2023)

COP OF THE YEAR

• This can only be Jesse Hernandez, the Florida sheriff’s deputy who mistook the sound of a falling acorn for gunfire, panicked, and emptied the magazine of his service weapon into his own car (while a handcuffed Black man sat inside.) The competition was stiff this year, but nobody else embodied the combination of cowardice, random violence, and reckless disregard for the lives of others that characterize the American police quite so well. (Feb. 16, 2024)

(dis)honorable mentions:

• The Tallahassee cops who filmed themselves planting evidence on a Black driver at a traffic stop. (Apr. 5, 2024)

• The Chicago cops who were active members in the Oath Keepers militia, but got to keep their jobs on the force anyway. (May 10, 2024)

• The Miami Beach cops who got a Rolls-Royce squad car donated by a local dealership, with prominent ads for that dealership on it. (Definitely not shady!) (also May 10, 2024)

• The Seattle cops who ran over a 23-year-old graduate student while driving 74 mph in a 25 mph zone, laughed about it, and said to “just write a check” since she had “limited value.” (Sept. 15, 2023)

• The Mississippi cops who buried a Black man in an unmarked grave at the Hinds County penal farm and waited six months before bothering to tell his mother about it. (Oct. 31, 2023)

• The cops in Pullman, Washington who added a military-surplus MRAP, an armored vehicle more commonly used in Iraq or Afghanistan, to their small-town vehicle fleet for no clear reason. (Nov. 24, 2023)

MOST CHAOTIC ACT OF ANIMAL MISCHIEF:

This year saw creatures near and far reasserting themselves against the ravages of human society. But truly, nobody else made their presence felt like the dreaded orca insurgency that capsized three boats of the coast of the Iberian peninsula last May and has been found impervious even to heavy metal music. (Nov. 24, 2023) 

honorable mentions: 

• Hank the Tank, the 500-pound black bear who perpetrated 28 home break-ins in the Lake Tahoe area. (Aug. 8, 2023)

• The horde of javelinas that ransacked one of the most prestigious golf courses in Arizona. (Oct. 27, 2023)

• The well-endowed AI-generated rat who was mistakenly included in a “peer-reviewed” scientific journal. (Feb. 16, 2024)
• The giant snails that terrorized the people of Florida by popping tires with their shells and chewing the stucco off houses. (June 23, 2023)

[DISCLAIMER: Current Affairs has a strictly enforced policy against ranking animals. We are not making a judgment on the overall value of these animals as such, but on the actions of the individual creatures listed above. Please do not consider this as a statement that orcas in the aggregate are superior to snails, javelinas, rats (naturally or artificially occurring), or bears in the aggregate. All animals are equal.]

ODDEST POLITICAL HAIRSTYLE

• Rain Epler, Estonia
  A member of the far-right EKRE party, Epler apparently went straight into a barbershop in Tallinn and said “Give me the Joe Dirt.”

honorable (?) mentions:

• Geert Wilders, the Netherlands (Nov. 24, 2023)

• Javier Milei, Argentina (Nov. 21, 2023)

• Donald Trump, United  States (various)

MOST LOATHSOME OP-ED:

• Without question, this goes to Alan Dershowitz and Andrew Stein for the truly repellent “Just How Many of Gaza’s Civilians are Entirely ‘Innocent’?” (New York Post) 

(dis)honorable mentions: 

• David R. Henderson and Charles L. Hooper, “Be Thankful for High Drug Prices” (Wall Street Journal) (Feb. 9, 2024)

• Jason Mattera, “Some People Deserve to Starve: A Biblical View of Work and Welfare” (The Standing for Freedom Center) (June 8, 2023)

• Thomas Friedman, “Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom” (New York Times) (Feb. 6, 2024)

• James Bartholomew, “Why Isn’t Lenin as Reviled as Hitler?” (The Spectator) (Jan. 22, 2024)

MOST REMARKABLE FEAT OF LABOR ORGANIZING:

• This award goes to the United Auto Workers’ “stand-up strike” against Detroit’s Big Three auto companies (chronicled in the News Briefings for Aug. 29, Sept. 15, Sept. 29, Oct. 10, Oct. 20, Oct. 27, and Oct. 31, 2023.) Not only was this a truly epic struggle that occupied our attention for months, but it resulted in historic gains for the auto workers, forcing pay increases, an end to the divisive practice of “tiered” labor, and the re-opening of the Belvidere Assembly Plant. What’s more, it paved the way for a new surge of union activity in the South, which led to the successful unionization of the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee (Apr. 23, 2024). It’s the most exciting thing to happen in the U.S. labor movement in quite some time. 

honorable mentions:

• The dual strikes by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA), which ground Hollywood to a halt for months and secured significant pay increases for workers in the film industry, along with protections against the growing threat of job loss to AI. 
• The August 2023 strike by medical workers at Chicago’s Loretto Hospital, which lasted for 14 days and won them an average 14.5 percent pay raise over a period of three years. 
• The wildcat strike by pharmacy workers at CVS stores across Missouri, who walked off the job in protest against cuts to their staffing and working hours.
• The roughly 75,000 healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente who staged the largest healthcare strike in U.S. history, leading to a 21 percent pay increase after three days on the picket line. (Oct. 6 and Oct. 17, 2023)
• The teachers at 81 different schools in Portland, Oregon who went on strike in November, demanding “mice and mold-free buildings” for their students.
• The mechanics in Sweden’s IG Metall industrial union who struck against Tesla and its refusal to sign a union contract, and the dockworkers who stood in solidarity with them, refusing to deliver Tesla products into the country until the dispute was satisfactorily resolved. 
• The Starbucks workers who held a “Red Cup Rebellion” on the company’s (in)famous Red Cup Day, walking off the job to demand better staffing for the special sales event. 
• The Amazon workers all over the world who held strikes, walkouts, and protests on Black Friday, 2023.
• The more than 750 workers at the Bezos-owned Washington Post who went on strike in December, and deployed our old friend Scabby the Rat to help them. (Dec. 8, 2023)

BEST RAP VIDEO

• Macklemore, “Hind’s Hall.”

In a music industry that’s been all too silent on the issue, it took Macklemore (of all people!) to stand up for the human rights of Palestinians with a short, punchy protest song. (May 7, 2024)

WORST RAP VIDEO

• Ben Shapiro and Tom MacDonald, “Facts.”

The less said about this, the better. (Jan. 30, 2024)

FUNNIEST ACT OF PROTEST

This award goes to the people in Indiana who responded to Attorney General Todd Rokita’s “Eyes on Education” website—a political “tip line” which aimed to let conservatives “report” content they found objectionable in schools—with absurd memes, making it completely unusable. (Special credit to whoever reported seeing “Godzilla at the beach with a trans flag.”) Similarly, the people in Utah who overloaded Governor Spencer Cox’s website for reporting trans people in public restrooms with (among other things) cat memes, anime screenshots, pictures of adult actor Barry Wood, and the entire script of The Bee Movie. Also the people who did the same to school superintendent Ryan Walters’ “Parent Watch” website in Oklahoma. This was a banner year for people posting absolute nonsense to government websites for a good cause, and their service is appreciated. (Feb. 9, 2024)

honorable mentions:

• The climate protestors who unfurled a “PETRO PETE” banner onstage during a Pete Buttigieg event to protest the Transportation Secretary’s involvement in constructing huge new offshore oil distribution facilities. (Oct. 13, 2023)
• The Australian “anti-landlord” TikToker who posted the addresses of vacant properties online for homeless people to commandeer. (Apr. 9, 2024)
• The Mexican artist who smashed a Tesla convertible with a giant stone Olmec head as a protest against Elon Musk, and said “Look what I do to your lousy car with this wonderful head. This is bigger than you and the rampant technologies.” (Mar. 22, 2024)

QUOTES OF THE YEAR

STRANGEST TRUMP QUOTE

“Gettysburg. Wow. I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to look and to watch. And the statement of Robert E. Lee ― who’s no longer in favor, did you ever notice that? No longer in favor ― ‘Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.’ They were fighting uphill. He said ‘Wow, that was a big mistake.’” (Apr. 16, 2024)

honorable (?) mentions:

• “The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’s a wonderful man.” (May 14, 2024)

• “People from places unknown, from countries unknown, who don’t speak languages! We have languages coming into our country, we have nobody who even speaks those languages. They’re truly foreign languages.” (Mar. 5, 2024)

• “We have to win in November, or we’re not going to have Pennsylvania. They’ll change the name. They’re going to change the name of Pennsylvania.” (Feb. 16, 2024)

• “I just met non-liquid gold. You know where it was? Iowa. It’s called corn!” (Jan. 19, 2024)

• “So I have a choice of electrocution or shark. You know what I’m going to take? Electrocution. I will take electrocution every single time.” (October 6, 2023)

SLEEPIEST JOE BIDEN MOMENT: 

There are so many to choose from, but in the end, nothing can ever top accusing the people of Papua New Guinea of having cannibalized his uncle during World War II. (Apr. 23, 2024)

honorable (?) mentions: 

• Referring to Egyptian President El-Sisi as “President of Mexico.” (Apr. 5, 2024)

• Confusing current French President Emmanuel Macron with President François Mitterrand, who has been dead since 1996. (Mar. 5, 2024)

• Saying that “America is a nation that can be defined in a single word: ‘ASUFUTIMAEHAEHFUTBW’”

MOST DERANGED COMMENT BY A CONSERVATIVE: 

Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire: “I do not want America to be as socially conservative as 2012. I want our civilization to be as socially conservative as we were in 1220.”  (June 20, 2023)

MOST DERANGED COMMENT BY A LIBERAL:

New York Governor Kathy Hochul:  “If Canada someday ever attacked Buffalo, I’m sorry, my friends, there would be no Canada the next day. But think about that, that is a natural reaction. You have a right to defend yourself and to make sure it never happens again, and that is Israel’s right.”  (Feb. 20, 2024)

BEST POLITICAL MAGAZINE:

Modesty forbids us.