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2014 has just about come and gone. Because the first big story of the year was Colorado legalizing the use of marijuana in January, we thought you might be having a harder time than usual keeping the year’s events straight. With that in mind, here’s your annotated guide to lessons learned in 2014.

— There were two possible ways for Democrats to campaign given the unpopularity of the President. Run away from Barack Obama and hope that you could make a plausible case to swing voters, or embrace the president and hope that you could turn out his coalition in numbers sufficient to counteract the Republican wave. SPOILER ALERT: neither approach worked.

— We now live in an age when the NSA can track your every move, but it’s still somehow possible to lose a Boeing 777 without a trace.

— In 2014, the federal government spent $3.5 trillion and ran up a $486 billion deficit. Despite that fact, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Centers for Disease Control apparently didn’t have enough money to fulfill even their core responsibilities.

— If you’re a racist NBA franchise owner, the bad news is that you’ll get your team taken away from you. The good news is that nobody will so much as make a peep about the fact that you’re carrying on an extramarital affair in public.

— There’s a seller’s market for American hostages. Barack Obama managed to get one P.O.W. being held in Afghanistan in exchange for five Taliban detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, and two prisoners from Raul Castro in exchange for three Cuban spies. Take a moment with that math and the president’s budgets start to become a lot more intelligible.

— The nominal minimum wage in Seattle is now $15 per hour, which means a growing number of the city’s residents will now be making the real minimum wage: $0 per hour.

— Loose immigration laws, as we’ve repeatedly been told, do not create a magnet for new illegal immigration. Presumably then, 47,000 Central American children made their way to the border this summer just so they could catch the premier of Guardians of the Galaxy.

— It probably would’ve been a good idea for us to keep the gift receipt for that reset button we gave to the Russians a few years ago.

— More of our countrymen than ever were excited for World Cup soccer in 2014. So yeah, the American moment is pretty much over.

— It’s an open question whether the bigger offense to justice this year was Barack Obama quietly smothering the rule of law with a pillow or Miami police not finding a way to get Justin Bieber to Guantanamo.

— The American movie industry now has its decisions made for it in Pyongyang. Though, to be fair, it’s hard to imagine that the outcome could be worse … or yield more propaganda.

— If you’re going to make history by landing a space probe on a speeding comet, remember to choose your wardrobe from the non-microagression section of your closet.

— Good news for America’s mall cops: there are now a number of openings with the Secret Service. We can only hope that’s the reason Al Sharpton has been able to get into the White House so often.

— In sports news, football fans couldn’t decide whether they were more outraged by players who beat their wives and children or an 80-year old franchise nickname that didn’t offend anyone until five minutes ago. Please note: these people vote in the same elections that you do.

— Response to marauding jihadist terrorists in the Middle East: calling them “junior varsity.” Response to American intelligence officials who interrogate marauding jihadist terrorists in the Middle East: calling them “criminals.”

— You are apparently a bigot if you think there’s anything wrong with forcing nuns to pay for your sterilization.

— In public health news, we now live in a country that won’t so much as delay one flight to prevent the spread of Ebola, but will happily drench itself in ice water for something that’s somehow related to ALS.

— Note to presidential candidates: Lying about an act of terrorism that claimed the lives of American citizens does not disqualify you from higher office. A traffic jam on a bridge, however, apparently does.