This column is somewhat of a departure for me, since I rarely take much note of what actors say, even on the subject of politics. Well, I should qualify that, I suppose, to read "actors who are not currently governors, senators, or presidents." But even with all the attention being focused on Gary Oldman's recent interview with Playboy, I feel the need to point out the fact that while everyone else is focusing on some bizarre and offensive things Oldman said, nobody seems to have mentioned his segue into the subject -- which is even more bizarre (to me, at least) than the rest of what he had to say.

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Enough digression, though. Last night, Senator Thad Cochran pulled off an upset of sorts, by defeating his Tea Party primary challenger in the rematch atmosphere of a "top two" runoff election. His chance of victory had been seen by many (at least before the election results began coming in) as increasingly unlikely -- which is why the political world is abuzz over what just happened down in the Magnolia State. Consider the fact that Cochran came in second in the original primary, and it was only due to a third candidate being in the race that he was even given the second chance of a runoff election (because main Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel failed to reach 50 percent of the vote, to put this another way). Because of this, and because of what was perceived as the growing national momentum of the Tea Party after Eric Cantor's epic defeat (more on this in a moment), it seemed Cochran was doomed. The energy was supposed to mostly be on the Tea Party's side, and turnouts for runoff elections are notoriously low, so most watchers of politics had all but written off Cochran's chances to pull off an upset victory. And yet, against all this conventional wisdom, Cochran still won -- he successfully "iced out" the Tea Party.

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As we were entering into the shank of primary season a few weeks back, I wrote an article discussing how the political world would view the gains and losses of the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party. Since that time, we have seen the Tea Party lose many big races, and spectacularly win at least one race. Today, voters in Mississippi are going to add another chapter to this saga, as they decide the runoff election between sitting Senator Thad Cochran and his Tea Party challenger.

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Today, we're going to have a special edition of the talking points, where we get to know a Montana politician who seems to be seriously considering taking on Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. But before we do so, it was a busy week otherwise, so let's just dive right into it. First, a look at what's going with Republicans.

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The votes are in, and the Republican House caucus has just elected Kevin McCarthy as their new Majority Leader and Steve Scalise as their new Majority Whip. All of this was precipitated, of course, by the current Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, being handed his hat by the voters in his home district. After a roughly one-week "campaign" (which many have likened to a high school popularity contest such as the election of class president), McCarthy will now move up from the third-ranking Republican leadership position to the second, and Scalise will now take over from McCarthy.

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Yesterday was Fathers' Day. Most dads, even those who happen to be elected officials, were able to relax and enjoy the day by spending some time with their families. California legislators did not have this luxury, due to their own inactivity in the days leading up to a midnight legislative deadline. They worked throughout the weekend to produce the state's budget on time -- which they achieved, late yesterday. But the really newsworthy thing about this was why they decided to work the whole weekend instead of just ignoring the mandated deadline (which they used to routinely do). They put in the overtime hours for one reason and one reason alone: if they hadn't come to an agreement on time, their pay would have stopped at midnight. Call this story the success of the "no budget, no pay" idea, if you will.

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I have to begin this week by apologizing for the irreverent nature of that title, but then how often do you get a chance to coin a cool word like "selenofriggatriskaidekaphobia"? The proper answer is that the chance won't come again until 2049, which explains why we couldn't resist. The word is a mashup of two phobias, the fear of a full moon (selenophobia) and the fear of Friday the 13th (friggatriskaidekaphobia, not to be confused with fear of the number 13, which is just triskaidekaphobia, of course). The rare occurrence of a full moon on a Friday the 13th won't happen again for another 35 years, so today's pretty much it for this generation of selenofriggatriskaidekaphobics, at least. But enough of this looney etymological fun, let's get on with a week chock-full of political happenings, shall we?

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Every so often, the American political world is turned upside down. Last night was one of those moments, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was "primaried" out of a job. Nobody (including me) predicted this upset. Today, pundits are falling all over themselves to come up with an appropriate metaphor for the magnitude of Cantor's loss on the political scene. Living in California as I do, I'm going to go with earthquake terminology: this was a massive and cataclysmic temblor for Republicans -- the equivalent of about a 9.0 on the political Richter scale.

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A proposal from Senator Elizabeth Warren would drastically change the program, but so far it hasn't gotten President Obama's full-throated support. While I understand that Obama can rightly say that he's doing what he can on student loans outside of Congress, if he truly wanted to reform the program he would get solidly behind Warren's proposal and push it as hard as possible, in an effort to shame at least the Senate into acting upon it.

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This week was notable in many respects in the political world, but one subject overwhelmed almost everything else. We're going to address the prisoner swap and Bowe Bergdahl in an unusual way this week, in lieu of our regular talking points at the end of the column. But first, we're going to take a very quick look at what else happened this week, and then hand out the weekly awards.

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