Big Lie, Big Truth: In a blistering speech in which he never mentioned Donald Trump by name, President Joe Biden breeched traditional etiquette and protocol yesterday in a speech denouncing his predecessor,  his propagation of the big lie that the 2020 election was rigged and Donald Trump’s his attempt to block the peaceful transfer of power.

  “For the first time in our history, a president had not just lost an election; he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol,” Biden said. He referred to Trump only as “a president” or ‘the former president.”

  Declaring that “The former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election,” Biden said, “He’s done so because he values power over principle, because he sees his own interest as more important than his country’s interest, than America’s interest. And because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution.”

  Trump quickly responded with statement saying, “The Democrats want to own this day of January 6th so they can stoke fears and divide America.” He went on, “I say, let them have it because America sees through theirs [sic] lies and polarizations.”

  The Democrats aren’t lying about the January 6^th insurrection. Biden said one of the “Big Lies” Trump is telling “is that the mob who sought to impose their will through violence are the nation’s true patriots.”

  The Republicans are sticking steadfastly with Trump while ignoring the events of one year ago. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for a moment of silence to mark the day, the only Republican in attendance was Wyoming’s Liz Cheney, accompanied by her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney. The elder Cheney told CNN’s Jonathan Karl, ““I’m deeply disappointed we don’t have better leadership in the Republican Party to restore the Constitution.”

  Biden said in his speech, “We’re engaged anew in a struggle between democracy and autocracy, between the aspirations of the many and the greed of the few, between the people’s right of self-determination and self-seeking autocrat.” 

Viral News: Worldwide cases of the coronavirus have topped 300 million this morning, reaching 3,00,414,180. Five and a half million people around the world have died of Covid-19.

  On the celebrity Covid list here in the US this morning are Hoda Kotb of NBC’s Today Show  and James Corden of “The Late Late Show.”

  The Supreme Court is expected today to hear arguments on the legality of the Biden administration vaccine mandates. Challenges have been brought by Republican officials, businesses, religious groups.

  The court would decide whether to stay the administration orders as the challenges wend their way through lower courts.

  One of the administration orders is directed at businesses with 100 or more employees, imposing a vaccine-or-test mandate on more than 84 million workers. The administration estimates that the rule would make 22 million people get vaccinated and prevent 250,000 hospitalizations.

The Obit Page: Oscar nominated director Peter Bogdanovich, who made the acclaimed “Paper Moon” and “The Last Picture Show” as a young man only to fall from Hollywood grace, has died at age 82. Bogdanovich’s early success was followed by box office flops, two bankruptcies, and personal tragedy. 

  He fell in love with the married Playboy model Dorothy Stratten, whose estranged husband later killed her in one of the most notorious Hollywood murders. Seven years later he married Stratten’s sister, Louise, when she was just 20, opening him to criticism that he was trying to re-create his life with Dorothy.

  Bogdanovich also made the movies “What’s Up, Doc?,” “Daisy Miller,” and “Nickelodeon.” Originally trained as an actor he appeared as a psychiatrist in the HBO series, “The Sopranos.” He used to like to say, “I was born, and then I liked movies.”

The Spin Rack: Former NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who’s won the Pulitzer Prize twice, has been disqualified from running for governor of Oregon because he hasn’t lived there the requisite three years. Although Kristof held a New York driver’s license and voted there in 2020, he blasted the decision as “grounded in politics, not precedent.” — Sacred Heart Academy, a girls school in Hamden, Connecticut, suspended its basketball coach after he allowed the team to run up the score to  92-4 against Lyman Hall. — Investigators are looking into the possibility that a 5-year-old playing with a lighter may have ignited a Christmas tree, leading to the fire that killed 12 people, including eight children, in a Philadelphia row house.

Driving on the Left: Despite all the worries about global warming and air pollution, automobile advertising in the US still glamorizes big engines, driving alone, and freedom of the road.

  They’re done with that in France. Starting in March, French car advertising must also include messages about not using a car at all such as “For short trips, opt for walking or cycling” or “Use public transportation for everyday trips.” If you have to take a car, “Consider carpooling.”

  At the end of the message, advertisers will be required to use the hashtag “#SeDéplacerMoinsPolluer” — or #MovePolluteLess.

  Imagine if anyone proposed a law like that in America.

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