Defining Moments of the Decade: WTF, 2010s

2019: Longest Government Shutdown in History

President Trump announced that he and other political officials were prepared for ‘a very long shutdown’ if he was unable to get funding approved for the wall on Dec. 21, 2018.

While postal, military, and entitlement programs were primarily unaffected by the shutdown, NASA, national parks, and the I.R.S have suffered the consequences.

Nine out of 15 of the executive departments that were impacted include:

1. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
2. United States Department of Commerce (USDC)
3. United States Department of Homeland Security (USDHS)
4. United States Department of Housing and Urband Development (HUD)
5. United States Department of Interior (USDOI)
6. United States Department of Justice (USDOJ)
7. United States Department of State (USDOS)
8. United States Department of Transportation (USDOT)
9. United States Department of Treasury (USDT)

According to a lawsuit filed by a federal employees union following the shutdown, approximately 400,000 federal employees were forced to work illegally without any compensation.

The longest government shutdown in history ended on Jan. 25, 2019 after government agencies had been “partially shuttered,” NPR reported.

However, the bill only agreed to fund the government through Feb. 15 and the shutdown would continue if Trump didn’t sign the spending bill by then.

When the fateful day arrived, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed that Trump had signed the bill, averting another government shutdown, CNN says.

Instead of continuing with a shutdown, Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border of the United States.

Read: U.S. Partial Government Shutdown

The Burgundy Zine

The Mueller Report

Almost two years after Robert Mueller began his investigation on Russian interference during the 2016 US Presidential Election, the full report was released.

“The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion,” the Mueller report states. “Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016. In June, the Democratic National Committee and its cyber response team publicly announced that Russian hackers had compromised its computer network. Releases of hacked materials—hacks that public reporting soon attributed to the Russian government—began that same month.”

The investigation found “no evidence of collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government on election interference.

Trump Gets Impeached

The United States House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump in Dec. 2019 on charges for abuse of his office and obstructed Congress, the Washington Post reported.

“Democrats declaring him a threat to the nation and branding an indelible mark on the most turbulent presidency of modern times.”

Trump is impeached by the House, creating an indelible mark on his presidency | The Washington Post

College Admissions Scandal

Operation Varsity Blues found dozens of parents, college test administrators, and coaches guilty of rigging the college admissions process for parents willing to bribe their children into higher education, CBS News reported.

Actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Laughlin found themselves caught in the crossfire of the scandal, one of which pleaded guilty

Huffman was sentenced to 14 days in prison on Sept. 13 with one-year of supervised release, 250 hours of community service, and a fine of $30,000.

Laughlin, accused of paying $500,000 to have her two daughters designated as recruits to the University of Southern California, pleaded not guilty.

First Image of a Black Hole

Through the Event Horizon Telescope, NASA captured the first image of a black hole on April 10, 2019.

Wildfires in the Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon Rainforest experienced the most fire activity in the region since 2010, NASA reported. The fires were visible from space, as seen by the images NASA’s Aqua satellite captured.

World Record Egg

View this post on Instagram

Let’s set a world record together and get the most liked post on Instagram. Beating the current world record held by Kylie Jenner (18 million)! We got this ? #LikeTheEgg #EggSoldiers #EggGang

A post shared by EGG GANG ? (@world_record_egg) on Jan 4, 2019 at 9:05am PST

A photo of an egg posted by @world_record_egg on Instagram on Jan. 4, 2019 became the most-liked image on Instagram with 30.5 million likes in 10 days, surpassing Kylie Jenner’s Instagram post with 18 million likes that announced the birth of her daughter, Stormi Webster.

As this article is being written, the egg photo has 54,157,936 likes.

Continue to Bug’s Two Cents –>