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Where Things Stand: Three Pieces Of Good News In An Utterly Trash Time

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WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 21: A local resident is tested for COVID-19 at a free testing site at Farragut Square as coronavirus cases surge in the city on December 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. District of Columbia May... WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 21: A local resident is tested for COVID-19 at a free testing site at Farragut Square as coronavirus cases surge in the city on December 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser reinstated the city’s indoor mask mandate at 6am on Tuesday and announced a vaccination mandate for government employees after COVID-19 case numbers have surged to a new high. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) MORE LESS

December 22, 2021 6:21 p.m.

The last few weeks have been abnormally bleak and bizarre, even for pandemic times. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) put a bushel over Democrats’ hopes of legislating this year. Kyle Rittenhouse was celebrated as a hero at a conservative youth conference in Arizona. More and more Democrats are bending to the impending-consequences of partisan gerrymandering and retiring ahead of the Midterms. Omicron is very literally everywhere (including inside this writer’s lungs ?).

But today we were struck by a smattering of relatively positive (?) news developments. We’ll take what we can get.

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