“Those Democrats with their radical agenda! They want to allow women to make their own medical decisions without government oversight! They want gay people in love to be able to get married! They think you shouldn’t have to be rich to get health care! They think higher education should be available to everyone no matter their income! They even think that we shouldn’t punish transgendered people!”

Voters: “These terrible Democrats! What were their names again so we can recognize them when we go into the voting booth?”

So many problems in our world are caused simply because we try to force people to conform.

Men have to act this way, women have to act this way, you have to belong to the same religion, you have to love the opposite sex, you shouldn’t question authority, you can’t be unique.

If we’d stop trying to force everyone into categories, we’d sure have a more peaceful society.

There’s a meme going around complaining that Trump was allowed to work out a time to turn himself in, and therefore was being treated differently than the average criminal.

However, I have had plenty of clients — black, white, rich and poor — accused of felonies where I talked to the judge and the officers and we worked out a time for them to turn themselves in.

So that part doesn’t bother me. What bothers me (as usual) are all the hypocrites on the right claiming this is no big deal while screaming that Hillary should have been locked up for not realizing she had three pages of documents that had later been classified. (And remember — Trump’s DOJ could have charged her and would have loved to do so, but there was nothing there.)

When I went to college, I took so many different courses, based on what interested me. Besides my political science major, I took courses in sociology, philosophy, history, astronomy, music, film, literature, and even a course in puppetry. I think I became a better educated, well-rounded person because of it.

But college didn’t cost much in those days. I even went a 5th year (partially because I was working part time to pay for it and didn’t take 16 credits each semester) but that allowed me to expand past the required courses a lot more.

Now, with college being so expensive, people see it as an investment toward a job instead of being “getting an education.” It’s work training.

And that’s quite sad.

I believe in the First Amendment — not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it.

I get that age is a completely reasonable issue. It’s on everybody’s mind. And by “everyone” I mean the New York Times.  Headline: “Biden’s advanced age is a big issue. Trump’s, however, is not.”

I want everybody to have fun tonight, but please be safe. If you find yourself disoriented or confused, it’s either you’re drunk or Marjorie Taylor Greene.  

I love NPR — because they whisper into the mic like I do. But not everybody loves NPR.  Elon Musk tweeted that it should be defunded. The best way to make NPR go away is for Elon Musk to buy it.

We really have a record to be proud of. We added 12 million jobs, and that’s just counting the lawyers who defended Trump.

I had a lot of Ron DeSantis jokes ready, but Mickey Mouse beat the hell out of me and got there first.   

It’s great the cable news networks are here tonight. MSNBC, owned by NBC Universal. Fox News, owned by Dominion Voting Systems. 

Last year, your favorite Fox News reporters were able to attend because they were fully vaccinated and boosted. This year, with that $787 million settlement, they’re here because they couldn’t say no to a free meal.  

In the 80s, I started a magazine called “Animato!” that later grew quite large and popular. I got to meet and interview great animators like Chuck Jones and Ralph Bakshi but later sold the magazine, and it went on to even bigger successes until the internet killed all magazines.

So I’m still an animation fan, but it’s basically impossible to see all the films and all the animated TV shows these days unless you’re a full-time animator or animation historian, I guess.

These days, with so much CGI, we can debate what an “animated film” even is, but generally the accepted definition is that the main characters must be animated — not just the monsters or effects. (And “motion capture” doesn’t count.)

So here’s my annual end-of-the-year list of best and worst animated films (based on their Rotten Tomatoes score).  I used to only include films that were released to theaters, but thanks to the pandemic, that no longer applies. Ties are broken by number of reviews, and you have to have at least 10 reviews to make my list.

1. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (97%)
2. Beavis and Butthead Do The Universe (97%)
3. Turning Red (95%)
4. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (95%)
5. The Sea Beast (94%)
6. Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (91%)
7. The Bad Guys (88%)
8. The Bob’s Burgers Movie (88%)
9. My Father’s Dragon (88%) 
10. Wendell and Wild (81%)
11. Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers (80%)
12. Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again (77%)
13. Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (77%)
14. Lightyear (74%)
15. Strange World (73%)
16. DA League of Super Pets (73%) 
17. Lyle Lyle Crocodile (72%)
18. Minions: The Rise of Gru (70%)
19. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (69%)
20. Paws of Fury:  The Legend of Hank (68%)
21. Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (49%)
22. Luck (47%)
23. Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (38%)
24. The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild (17%)
25. Marmaduke (0%)

Senator Sinema just announced she would quit the Democrats to become an independent Senator.

She knew Democrats would run someone against her in the next primary. Switching to independent was a smart move politically — it allows her to drain votes from both parties and have a real chance of getting re-elected. She could win with just 34% of the vote. (On the other hand, she’ll now be attacked by both parties.)

This won’t really change much in the Senate, though.

If she caucuses with the Democrats (which she should do if she wants to keep her committee assignments), we’ll have 51 – 49, which allows for more stuff to get passed and moved out of committees at least.

If she caucuses with the Republicans, then we’re still 50 – 50.

If she joins neither, then we have 50 Democrats, 49 Republican, and one Sinema, and that’s just as good as if we had 51.

So it won’t really change things too much.

In the long run, she’ll probably not run for re-election and instead become a lobbyist.

Oh great, now I’m imaging a Sinema singing “Let’s go out to the lobby” at the cinema