Top 10 News Stories of 2023
This list of the top 10 news stories of 2023 is about what matters. This is list of hard news stories that are important whether or not they are popular. Wars matter more than pop culture. Sports and pop culture only make the list of they involve history, because history matters. Life and death matters. Unprecedented life and death events matter most.
For these reasons, Taylor Swift did not make the list. Pipe down, Swifties. She’s a singer. She became a billionaire. She has screaming fans. She is the new Beatlemania. She almost made the cut but came in at #11. There were 10 events more important than her. Deal with it.
The Southern border did not make the list. Fentanyl deaths did not make the list. Both of these have been problems for several years now. The war between Russia and Ukraine was the top story of 2022, but did not make the list this year. The reason is because at this moment, there is stalemate. A resolution one way or the other would instantly put this situation at or near the top of the list.
The 2024 presidential race did not make the list. There have been zero surprises on either side. The frontrunners have been entrenched for some time now. While the general election will most likely top the 2024 list, the primaries will not make the list unless something notable happens. Former president Trump’s many indictments did not make the list because there has been no resolution either way. President Biden did not make the list because he has been largely irrelevant.
COVID waned, removing it from the list. Inflation remains stubbornly high, but has receded from the peak. It is not a new story for 2024.
Matthew Perry’s death did not make the list. When someone dies at a young age, it is tragic. Yet Perry had a history of drug use. He died with a prescription drug in his system. Famous people die. He made the world a better place during his brief time here, but drug deaths have been happening for decades.
The Nashville school shooting by radical trans activist Audrey Hale can very close to making the iist, but the horrific story is incomplete. Portions of Hale’s manifesto have been released, but until the entire manifesto is released, this story will not get the attention it deserves.
With that, here are the Top 10 News Stories of 2023.
10.) House of Representatives recriminations: This was a year where members of the House tore each other to pieces. Republican Kevin McCarthy was elected Speaker after a record 15 ballots. He had to agree to a provision where one member could call for a vote to remove him. Matt Gaetz called that vote, and McCarthy went down. Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan tried to replace him, but neither one had the votes. Mike Rogers ended up being the consensus GOP candidate. He seems to have stopped the fratricide for now. After being ousted, McCarty announced he would leave Congress altogether at the end of this calendar year. Democrats saw several of their members face censures on the House Floor. Censure is a very rare rebuke. Adam Schiff was censured for his role in prolonging the Russia hoax. He was also stripped of one committee assignment. Rashida Tlaib was censured for antisemitic comments promoting anti-Jewish genocide. Ilhan Omar was stripped of one committee assignment for her antisemitic comments. Eric Swalwell was stripped of one committee assignment for his being compromised due to a sexual affair with a Chinese spy. For only the fifth time in House history, a member was expelled. There was bipartisan support to expel Republican George Santos, a gay Hispanic who pretended to be Jewish and allegedly engaged in repeated financial campaign misdeeds. He almost finished out his first term. This would have all ranked higher except that most people’s lives are unaffected by inside baseball described as palace intrigue.
9.) Detroit sports teams: Sports usually are not the top news stories. Sports are games. Yet two Detroit sports teams made history, and history matters. For Decades, the Lions have been a punching bag. In 2008, they became the first NFL team to ever go 0-16. Yet after 30 years, they are finally NFC North Division Champions again. They are 11-4 and have legitimate chance of making the Super Bowl. Coach Dan Campbell is fiery, and his team backs up his tough talk with tougher play. These Lions are no longer laughingstocks. They are hungry. On the flips side, the Pistons have made the worst kind of history. On December 26th, they lost their 27th straight game. That is an NBA record for most consecutive losses in a single season. The most consecutive losses is 28, but that was spread out over two seasons. This column will be updated to see how long the losing streak goes. The Pistons actually started 2-1 before the roof caved in. This would rank higher, but again, real life hard news events were far more serious.
8.) Colorado bans Trump: In a stunning and controversial ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court voted 4-3 to ban former President Donald Trump from appearing on the 2024 Colorado state presidential ballot. The frontrunner for a major political party has for the very first time been banned from appearing on a state ballot. The Colorado justices declared that Trump is ineligible under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution for his role in starting an insurrection against the United States on January 6th, 2021. This would rank higher except that the United States Supreme Court is expected to overturn the Colorado ruling. Every other state faced with this issue has rejected demands to remove Trump from the ballot. A key issue is that while Trump has repeatedly been accused by his political opponents of fomenting an insurrection, he has never formally been charged, much less convicted, with insurrection. To ban him from the ballot without due process of law sets a dangerous precedent. Republican governors across America are now debating whether to remove President Joe Biden from their state ballots due to allegations of bribery, money-laundering, and influence peddling. President Biden has not been formally charged with any crimes, but Colorado trying to lower that standard could have far-reaching consequences for all elected officials going forward.
UPDATE: On December 28, 2023, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, unilaterally banned Trump from the Maine state ballot. She is not a judge, and no judge in Maine ruled either way before she made her arbitrary decision. She cited the 14th Amendment and insurrection. Again, Trump has not been charged with insurrection.
7.) Stock market hits all time high: The previous stock market intraday high of 36,952 set on January 5th, 2022 was followed by a sharp retreat. The stock market dropped several thousand points. Yet happy days are here again on Wall Street. On December 13th of this year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a new all-time high and broke 37,000 for the very first time. On December 27th, the DJIA hit a new intraday all time high of 37,683. On this same day, the Nasdaq hit an intraday high for the year of 15,114. Even by traditional Santa Clause rallies, 2023 has been generous. Storm clouds may be on the horizon. Much of the stock market has been powered by seven stocks known as the “Magnificent Seven.” Many stocks are not keeping pace with the overall market itself.
6.) Damar Hamlin: Sports is normally not life and death, but this was. On January 2nd of this year, The Buffalo Bills were at the Cincinnati Bengals in a key Monday Night Football matchup. Both teams were legitimate Super Bowl contenders, but that soon became irrelevant in the moment. In the first quarter with the Bengals leading 7-3, Bills safety Damar Hamlin made what looked like a routine tackle on Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins. After the tackle, Hamlin got up, walked around, and then collapsed on the field. He was unconscious for nine minutes. Players and coaches prayed and cried together. Players have gotten injured in games before, but this was different. Hamlin was in cardiac arrest and at risk of dying. This was an unprecedented situation. Both coaches consulted with the league and decided to cancel the rest of the game. It was never replayed. The outpouring of love for Hamlin contributed to a miracle. After nearly dying, he was able to go home after nine days in the hospital. His charity to buy toys for children raised over seven million dollars in the days following his heart scare. He has now become an advocate for everyone learning CPR, since CPR saved his life. Hamlin even came full circle, playing full contact tackle football for the Bills in their October matchup this year against the rival Miami Dolphins. Thanks to God’s grace and top rate medical on the field, no NFL player has ever died on the field during a game (Korey stringer died during practice and Chuck Hughes collapsed on the field but died later at the hospital).
5.) Bud Light scandal, Harvard plagiarism: It takes a lifetime to build a reputation, but it can all be destroyed at the speed of (Bud) light. 2023 was the year where two of the most respected institutions in America destroyed their once platinum reputations. Anheiser Busch was one of the best companies in the history of American business. They did everything right. They wrapped themselves in the American flag. Their Super Bowl ads made us laugh with frogs and lizards and tugged at our patriotic heartstrings with noble Clydesdale horses and fire rescue dogs. Budweiser was America, the King of beers. Then a political activist named Alissa Heinerscheid joined the Anheiser Busch marketing department in a senior role. She came up with the worst marketing campaign in advertising history. She hired transgender social media personality Dylan Mulvaney to be a spokesperson for Bud Light. The backlash was swift and severe. Making matters worse, Heinerscheid attacked her company’s own customer base as “fratty” and “out of touch.” Sales plummeted as customers flocked to Miller and other beer companies. Anheiser Busch dropped as low as 14th, and has yet to recover. On the education front, Harvard was the top of the top. Then they socially promoted an unqualified woman named Claudine Gay to the elite institution’s presidency solely because she is a black woman and hardcore activist for the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion movement. Gay came under fire during a disastrous House committee hearing where she refused to condemn calls on her campus for genocide against Jews. Matters got worse for her when it was discovered that she is a serial plagiarizer She has been in open violation of rules that would get her own students expelled. Harvard’s Board of Trustees cannot fire her because that would require admitting that they were duped by the twin frauds of DEI and Ms. Gay herself. 20 years after the New York Times was humiliated for socially promoting Jason Blair, Harvard has learned nothing. For the first time in school history, students are rejecting early entry into the school.
4.) Ivy League professors antisemitism: Claudine Gay is one of far too many professors who range from openly tolerating antisemitic to openly being antisemitic. Just before Hanukkah and only two months after a terrorist attack against Israel, Ivy League university presidents imploded at a House committee hearing. Congresswoamn Elise Stefanik asked three university presidents what should have been an easy question. Would calling for the genocide of Jews be against the rules and laws of their universities? Harvard President Claudine Gay, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth all tried to whitewash antisemitic calls for genocide. They babbled about how such remarks had to be taken “in context,” as if there was ever was a justifiable context. Large donors immediately began canceling planned future gifts. Prestigious law firms and other companies vowed to no longer hire graduating students from these institutions. Three days after her disastrous congressional testimony, Magill resigned under pressure of being fired. The other two have survived for now. Former President Barack Obama personally lobbied behind the scenes to protect Gay, given their shared status as DEI cheerleaders and token hires under DEI themselves.
3.) Ecological disasters from East Palestine to Maui: Ecological disasters are not new, but 2023 brought a pair that were truly heartbreaking. In February of this year, A train crash in East Plestine, Ohio released toxic chemicals into the air. This small town of three square miles and less than 5,000 people has been irreversibly harmed. Many of the town’s residents are suffering from respiratory ailments. The largely Republican residents in this small town have claimed to be abandoned by a Democrat President unconcerned with Trump voters. In August of this year, wildfires devastated the Hawaiian Island of Maui. Over 100 people died in Maui. The gorgeous town of Lahaina was practically wiped off of the map and rendered uninhabitable. Over 1% of all of Maui burned. This was a avoidable disaster. Hawaii’s electric utility admitted that its own flawed power lines started the fires. This was the deadliest wildfire in over a century. Hawaii also rarely gets attention in a presidential election, leaving the residents begging federal officials for desperately needed relief.
2.) Pogroms in America: After the Holocaust, it was taken for granted that America was the one place besides Israel where Jews could feel comfortable. When the most recent war between Israel and her Arab neighbors broke out, carefully organized anti-Israel protests broke out all over America. Virulent antisemitism bubbling below the surface exploded out into the open on college campuses. America’s most “progressive” cities held rallies where people chanted genocidal claims such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Even New York and Los Angeles, home to the largest Jewish populations outside of Israel, felt the wrath of violent anti-Jewish mobs. These were not free speech rallies. They were pogroms. In Los Angeles, an Arab man assaulted and killed a Jewish man named Paul Kessler in broad daylight. The Arab killer is being tried for a lesser homicide charge but not murder. Pictures of Jewish hostages are being ripped down by anti-Jewish mobs. Jews are having their stores vandalized with Nazi symbols. Chants of “Go back to the ovens,” once unthinkable in America, are openly being said without consequences. The antisemitic mobs are claiming the right to free speech, but there is no constitutional right to violently riot. Jews are taking extra safety measures. The federal government has issued meaningless platitudes condemning all forms of hate including Islamophobia. Yet Jews are the ones explicitly being attacked, often with impunity. Despite efforts to blame everything on “MAGA,” this antisemitism os clearly coming from the left. Many of the rioters have rioted for other leftist causes including radical climate action and radical gay and transgender actions. “Queers for Palestine” marches loudly and proudly without a hint of self-awareness. Many young people on TikTok are openly supporting Hamas and even Osama bin Laden. Jews are attempting to fight back, but the battle is an uphill one.
This brings us to the obvious top news story of 2023.
1.) The October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel: For decades, Israel has had a far superior military advantage over her enemies. Perhaps complacency set in. In a shockingly brutal and effective surprise attack, Hamas crossed into Israel and murdered over 1,200 Israeli Jews. Several Americans were among the murdered. Hamas also seized 240 hostages. Many of the victims were people partying at an Israeli music festival. Innocent women and children were raped, tortured and even beheaded by Hamas terrorists. October 7th became Israel’s September 11th. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added opposition parties to his conservative government to form a unity wartime government. Unlike past wars, Prime Minister Netanyahu said this one would be vastly different. Israel was no longer seeking to minimize the threat for a few years. The Israeli Defense Forces were preparing to completely eradicate Hamas. The IDF was preparing once and for all to “finish the job.” while the IDF performed as effectively as expected, Israel faced a ticking clock from word bodies drowning in antisemitism. Calls for an immediate ceasefire were calls for Jews to disarm and let Hamas murder them. Israelis have never mastered the public relations game. Displaced Egyptians and Jordanians calling themselves “Palestinians” claimed that they suffered over 20,000 deaths. Yet those numbers come from the Gaza Health Ministry, an Islamist agency run by Hamas. The GHM does not distinguish civilian deaths from terrorist deaths, nor does it distinguish those dying from Israeli fire from those being killed by their own government. Israel’s operation revealed that Hamas used schools, hospitals and mosques as bases for terror operations, eliminating the protected status of these institutions during wartime. Israel has started flooding Hamas’s underground tunnels with seawater to flush the terrorists above ground. Hezbollah has also gotten involved in the fight. Israel has vowed to defeat them as well. Houthi rebels in Yemen have been firing rockets at Israel but also on over 100 American military bases. Most of these attacks on American bases have gone unpunished. In the past, American Democrats have bullied Israel into “restraint” that has often come back to harm Israel. This time seems different. Israel is at war, and they are determined to remove any and all threats to their security, from “Palestinians” to other Islamists.
These are the Top 10 News Stories of 2023.
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