Wow, what a bunch of crap THAT was. Sure, every year has its episodes of glory or tragedy, but 2010 was remarkable for a sad, sizable trend. It was a time when horrible people did horrible things and got away with it, or got applauded for it, or became famous for it. No, I don’t have any scientific way of proving the claim. It’s all just my opinion, these sorts of societal crimes being in the eye of the beholder. But after recalling this group of jerks and the misery and death they rained upon innocent people, I won’t be the only one to say that 2010 was a real banner year for assholes.

–Upper Big Branch Mine tragedy. The explosion killed 29 hard working miners. Was the disaster any surprise given Massey Energy’s and right-winger Don Blankenship’s mocking of government safety efforts? “In the previous month, the authorities cited the mine for 57 safety infractions. The mine received two citations the day before the explosion and in the last five years has been cited for 1,342 safety violations.” No, not at all. Quote mammon Don:

“As someone who has overseen the mining of more coal than anyone else in the history of central Appalachia, I know that the safety and health of coal miners is my most important job. I don’t need Washington politicians to tell me that, and neither do you. But I also know — I also know Washington and state politicians have no idea how to improve miner safety. The very idea that they care more about coal miner safety than we do is as silly as global warming”.

Blankenship just retired four days ago as Massey CEO, paying himself at least $18 million a year. The miners remain dead.

–BP oil spill. 11 people dead. And that was barely the beginning – it almost killed the Gulf of Mexico. We don’t need to go on about the whole bitter, horrible thing: I’m frankly still sick of it. How’s BP doing? Their stock’s only down 24% from last year, around 44. You can bet it’ll be back above 50 this year. In the hall of assholes, British Petroleum are gods.

–Arizona legislature passes anti-immigrant S.B. 1070. They were only doing what the government was supposed to do. Yeah, right. They were really doing what assholes like to do: taking their frustrations out on defenseless people. The talentless idiot, interim Governor Jan Brewer, got elected to the real post merely by pimping the legislation relentlessly. What’s her vision for Arizona? What legislation is she likely to craft or endorse? What has she ever done? No one knows or cares. But she really took it to those Mexicans, eh? Congratulations, douchebags.

–Andrew Breitbart edits, publishes video to destroy Shirley Sherrod. Nobody knew who Shirley was until the Conservative internet goon got hold of a video of her, one where she honestly notes her own (frankly small) flaws with respect to racial issues, and edited it to make her appear the opposite: a brainless racist. Anyone of any standing should’ve figuratively lynched Breitbart for destroying an anonymous citizen for the purpose of rat-fucking. Instead, right-wingers like Dan Riehl embraced him: “Both Sherrod and the NAACP have charged the Tea Party movement and the Republican Party with racism, while offering less proof than Breitbart did of the racism he correctly alleged.” Once the video went viral, the world flinched, and Shirley got fired. Those histrionics, of course, are exactly what internet goons love to see. Throw in the Obama administration’s embarrassment over their senseless panic, and it couldn’t have gone any better for Breitbart. Shirley’s government career is still over.

–Ground zero mosque furor-storm. I’m not going to go on about this one either, I’m sick to death of it, too. Sure, any other religion can build whatever house of worship wherever they want, but not Islam because we’re really, truly in a full blown religious war with it — got that? So much for the separation of church and . . any aspect of your life, apparently. Big Asshole Winners: Fox News, Pam Geller, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Marco Rubio, other bigots everywhere ad nauseum . .

–Glenn Beck’s ‘Restoring Honor’ Rally. Glenn’s too warped to be restored, but people came by the thousands anyways. Pardon me — the tens of millions. They heard the noted legal expert/historian/mystic of Fox News talk about freedom and America and other concepts their parents long ago locked into mysterious black boxes in their hearts. Go ahead and ask the Beck fans about those particular things, and then get ready to duck: here comes their palpable rage. A patriot’s black boxes aren’t for you to play with, they’re for the truest Americans to unlock — rugged cowboys like John Wayne, or war heroes like Ronald Reagan, or revolutionaries like Glenn Beck. All of whom, even today, are very, very rich men. Now that he restored America’s honor on that afternoon, Beck can feel good about cashing his monthly paycheck: 2 to 3 million dollars, typical for learned scholars.

–Dharun Ravi humiliates Tyler Clementi to death. Hey, check out my freshman roommate, he’s totally gay. Hey, he’s got some dude in our room. Let’s see if I can access my webcam from your computer — yup, it’s still on. Let’s broadcast him and his date over the internet — kewl. Hey, let’s do it again — but, wait, let me direct everybody on Twitter to check out the live feed. Awesome! Woah, dude killed himself. Woah, they’re arresting me. Uncool. They’re not really sure what to charge me with, heh. Did I really do anything so bad? Most people like to see themselves on the internet. I gotta find a new college.

–Anti-gay megachurch president Eddie Long lies about his sex abuse of young men. In September of this year, it was revealed that homophobic megachurch millionaire pastor Eddie Long had been serially sexually abusing young males in his spiritual care. He took at least 4 of the male teens, approximately 16-18 years of age, as his ‘Spiritual Sons’, plied then with personal attention, trips, money and gifts, and then coerced them to repeatedly have sex with him. The young men, understandably, were devastated.

“I cannot get the sound of his voice out of my head and I cannot forget the smell of his cologne and I cannot forget the way he made me cry many nights when I drove in his cars on the way home,” [Jamal] Parris told the station. “I’m not able to take enough showers to wipe the smell of him off my body.”

When first exposed as the closeted gay sex predator that he really is, Long at first didn’t know what to do. But that didn’t last long: “Craig Gillen, Long’s attorney, says the pastor ‘categorically denies the allegations. We find it unfortunate that these two young men would take this course of action . . .’” Now it’s four young men. There will be others. Pity the poor, popular pastor: “I’ve been accused. I’m under attack. I want you to know, as I said earlier, I am not a perfect man, but this thing, I’m going to fight.” Of course he will.

–Brett Favre sexts pics of his cock, figures co-worker should blow him. What else do you need to know? How nasty a human being can a guy be? Favre wisely told the impotent NFL investigators to fuck off, and how grateful were they for that? You could’ve heard NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s sigh of relief from the moon. They fined him $50,000 and called it a day. Favre got paid $13 million this season, so 50K was about four minutes of game time, just enough for another iteration of the karmic curse of Jenn Sterger: an embarrassing interception.

–North Korea shells Yeonpyeong. South Korea conducts military exercises around their own Yeonpyeong island, North Korea flips out and bombards them with 170 rockets and artillery, killing 4, wounding 19. Two-thirds of the island’s forests got burned down, 21 buildings got destroyed. Slow to fire back, South Korea responded weakly. The tragedy/fiasco forced the resignation of their defense minister. The USS George Washington deployed to the area, and then the free world held their breath as the South were essentially forced to hold the Yeonpyeong exercises again to *cough* demonstrate their strength and sovereignty. This time, the North held their fire. Result: the South got fatalities and embarrassment, the North got some good propaganda, totalitarian-wise.

–Republican hypocrites grandstand, lie and paralyze their way back into power.

There are more than 90 judicial vacancies in U.S. district and appellate courts. But only 60 nominees have been confirmed by the Senate for U.S. appellate and district courts in the past two years, with another 19 receiving no up-or-down vote.

Why have the Republicans left the federal courts looking like Swiss cheese? FUCK YOU. Why have they set records for usage of the filibuster, effectively redefining the Senate majority to 60 votes? FUCK YOU. Why would they demand pay/go rules in congress and then oppose it when Democrats implement it? Why would they quietly attach tons of earmarks to the omnibus spending bill only to kill it when everyone notices? Why would they all but call for the impeachment of Obama over the national debt and then force debt-exploding tax cut after tax cut into the year end unemployment bill?

There is now no doubt that all of the GOP talk during the campaign about reducing the deficit was nothing more than a ploy to get elected and that Republicans have no plans to do anything but make the federal government’s red ink larger than it already is and would otherwise be.

Who just took back power in an epic landslide? HA HA HA HA FUCK YOU. Good people may register their disappointment in November of 2012.