We’ve sifted through a lot of “year in review” lists from our favorite blogs and sites… Here are a few highlights:

From Politico: The 10 worst decisions of 2010. Highlight: “Eric Massa’s tickle defense”

From The Daily Beast: 14 Best Late Night TV Moments of the Year. Highlight: “The Sometime at Night Show with Some White Guy”

From Gawker: And Now They’re Dead: People We Lost in 2010. (Giving a highlight here feels rude.)

From New York Magazine’s Vulture blog: The 50 Greatest Vulture Slideshows of 2010. Highlight: It’s a list of the best lists of the year. What’s not to love, if you love lists?

From NPR Music: 50 Favorite Albums of 2010. Highlight: Arcade Fire’s ‘The Suburbs’

From Buzzfeed: The 30 Most Important Cats of 2010. Highlight: Cat hugging his teddy bear

From the “Today Show”: “Today” Looks Back at 2010’s Newsmakers. Highlight: Kanye West (enough said)

And for all of the cynics/list-haters out there… From Politics Daily and Walter Shapiro: Why I Hate Year-End List Stories — a Rant with a List. Highlight: Perspective.

There’s a good mix there, but comment and show us something you’ve seen that we missed!

When reflecting back on 2011 there was one party that got every one’s attention:

The Tea Party.

Despite their sometimes silly costumes and signs, the ultraconservative Tea Party proved they were serious in 2010.

From Florida to Alaska, Tea Partiers bucked the GOP establishment by making sure their candidates were on the ballots of many of the year’s most watched electoral races.  Their new-found political clout garnered media attention all over the country.

The attention wasn’t always positive.  In Delaware, Tea-Party-favorite Christine O’Donnell was repeatedly mocked after being forced to announce she wasn’t a witch.

Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul received bad press of his own when he made provocative comments about civil rights. Eyebrows were raised when some of his supporters physically attacked a liberal activist.

In the end, the group had  highs and lows like any political movement.  While they might be credited with putting Republicans into the leadership of the US House of Representatives, they failed to help them take control of the Senate.

So, the question is: Who will be invited to the Party next year?

Sarah Palin is still probably going to go ahead and run for the presidency in 2012. Also, the earth orbits the sun.

“Every speech should begin with a shot of tequila.” A candidate after a college student’s (21+ of course) own heart.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Stand up, sit down, applaud, guffaw, chuckle, smirk, repeat…for one hour.

That pretty much describe how the folks in the Senate chamber reacted to the State of the Union address last night.

If you were sleeping listening to the President’s speech, you heard a lot of talk and a lot of promises… But what does it all mean?

We’ve found some pretty good analysis of the big event to help answer that question (And make you sound incredibly informed during the discussion at the water fountain/cooler today).

Some of the best commentary came via live blogs and Tweets. Catch up on what we had to say on Twitter in case you missed it! Some other great Tweets:

From the political satirist @BorowitzReport: Instant Poll: 90% of Republicans Who Did Not See Obama’s Speech Disagree With It

Getting to the point is @PatrickRuffini: This change stuff is HARD #shortersotu

Political analyst @marcambinder indicates a positive response to the address: CBS Instapoll: approve of the proposals? 83% said yes. Obama has same priorities as you have? (57% to 73% in sample from pre to post)

Outside of the Twittersphere are people poring over the transcript, fact-checking, and wondering why Hillary Clinton wasn’t there. (For a good reason.)

Videos immediately started popping up around the web pointing out great, awkward, or important lines in the speech. It’s always nice to hear things straight from the horse’s mouth, so here’s a sampling of what you missed if you fell asleep at 9:00pm:

Chris Matthews may be catching some commentary for this remark (having to do with nothing other than race):

Obama creates his own little awkward moment when he calls out the Supreme Court for their recent decision on campaign finance (and Justice Alito shakes his head):

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Obama tells the Democrats they needn’t “run for the hills:”

And maybe most importantly, Obama tells the United States that he doesn’t give up on dreams:

That’s not everything there is to say by a long shot, but it’s a start to explaining the important stuff. And if you’re tired of hearing about this State of the Union already, see how things could be different with The Daily Beast’s compilation of some bad ones.

What did you think about Mr. Obama’s proposals? How did he do on his first State of the Union address?

Courtesy SCOTUS website.

Unsurprisingly, some people (like Democrat Alan Grayson) don’t like the Supreme Court’s recent finance decision. Raise your hand if you can guess why!

Too big to fail? Not the Dems. Another retirement for the party is at hand!

The divisive bill gets, well, more divisive. The House of Representatives doesn’t trust its mates!

Haitian Coat of Arms- Courtesy of WikiCommons

Boots on the Ground (earthquake-ravaged ground)… US troops arrive at Haiti National Palace to provide aid.

Political Junkies Rejoice… The Massachusetts election is a nail-biter.

This stuff happens in real life!?

A driver whose SUV plunged into a Northern California creek … escaped the sinking vehicle by blasting out the window with a handgun.

So… what will 2010 hold for You?

This question was posed to the USDemocrazy bloggers by our esteemed editor. Below are 2 predictions from each of our writers. There is one a serious observation and one well a little more cheeky. Check back a year from now to see how well we score in the future-telling business!

From Stefmav:
1. People will start to become more aware of the amount of information Google is collecting, resulting in some sort of lawsuit.
2. US Democrazy will be the primary means for educating astronauts of current events and happening when traveling in space.

MZ_Hammer:
1. The US Federal Reserve raises interest rates to quell fears of inflation.
2. Michael Phelps shocks the world by wining a gold medal for ice dancing (apparently he is as good on water as he is in it).

Chickpea:
1. The world of politics will continue to become more and more divisive. Climate change and the economy, two items on congress’s agenda, will become very heated in the year to come.
2. Michael Jackson will rise from the grave and cut a Christmas album with Tupac.

Politizen:
1. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will step down over the fallout from her reaction to the thwarted Christmas Day bomb plot, and be replaced by Joe Lieberman. Despite initial criticism from democrats over the selection of Lieberman, the decision will be seen as tactically brilliant in retrospect.
2. Despite the efforts of our editors, we here at USDemocrazy will win our first Webby award.

ForeverPlaid:
1. The USDemocrazy team will lose more sleep than usual during, what we foresee to be, an interesting and contested election cycle this fall. Yep… it’s that time again!
2. The producers of “All Things Considered” will realize they’ve failed to consider something, leading to a collective existential crisis for lovers and makers of public radio everywhere.

Susa:
1. Unemployment will take a while to fix, and will be at its worst in 2010, which will cause the government to invest more money in social projects, including education and infrastructure.
2. The USDemocrazy bloggers will keep their well-paying positions as bloggers!

Lady_bug:
1. Salzburg, Austria will discover that USDemocrazy’s Foreign correspondent is actually a long lost member of Austrian royalty and shower her with lots of pastries and wienerschnitzel  ; )
2.The Philadelphia Eagles will advance in the NFL Playoffs… but not far enough to reach the Superbowl, letting their fans down once again : (

LegalEagle:
1. Gun rights laws are going to become a buzz topic in ‘10.
2. After reaching 10 guns per capita, Texas will secede from the Union… and dare any one to stop them.

This time of the year there are many articles and TV shows looking BACK at the events of the past year. The cartoon above dares to look ahead at the events of the next decade. Which of these do you think are most likely to happen?  (Cartoon by KAL)

Image taken from fruitfly.wordpress.com

We here at USDemocrazy are quite familiar with reruns. By reruns, we mean our editors mercilessly rerun the same gripes about our alleged bad speling.

But this week, we have come across a rerun of the political sort.

The Associated Press reported over the weekend that former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani may be seeking to re-ignite his political career.

The former Mayor of New York and (disastrous) Presidential candidate thinks he has a chance to unseat  Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). One poll suggests that the incumbent may be vulnerable.

In this story, the Christian Science Monitor asks:

Will his mayoral credentials help or hurt him?

Politico Live reports that some Rudy-watchers think the former mayor’s message may be a stale rerun:

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) ripped Rudy Giuliani Sunday, saying that the former New York City mayor “wants to keep 9/11 alive” in order to further his political ambitions.

We are not sure what to make of this rerun… maybe he’s angling for the RERUN JACKPOT…a Palin/Giuliani ticket for 2012!!