President Joe Biden now has an official impeachment inquiry investigating him in the Republican-held House of Representatives. It is the most singular such inquiry in American history, since nobody -- not even the people who have been pushing the idea -- can say precisely what crime Biden has supposedly committed. So for now, they're just investigating him for the crime of (take your pick): being Joe Biden. Or being a Democratic president. Or beating Donald Trump. Or (most likely, given the Republican monomania on the idea) being Hunter Biden's father.

None of these things are actual crimes, it bears pointing out. But that simply doesn't matter to the House. They're merrily on their way to impeaching Biden for one reason and one reason alone: because Donald Trump wanted them to. Trump is still miffed (to put it mildly) that he's the only U.S. president to have been impeached not one time but twice. So, as far as he is concerned, Republicans have a duty to turn the tables and impeach the man who beat him at the polls, to try to weaken him for the presidential rematch that is shaping up for next year.

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Rudy Giuliani is about to find out the exact pricetag for destroying two innocent people's lives. And it could be as high as tens of millions of dollars. A jury may decide that Giuliani owes the people he defamed as much as $47 million -- and that's before they get around to assessing emotional and punitive damages on top of the base award. And this is just the first lawsuit Giuliani faces for his serial lying about the 2020 election. No matter what the jury settles on as a punishment for Giuliani, it may wind up being small potatoes if the voting machine company Dominion wins its own defamation lawsuit against Rudy -- because they're suing him for a cool $1.3 billion.

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We return after our extended holiday break to a growing realization in the political world. We had already come to this conclusion a while back, but it seems more and more people are now realizing that, barring any force majeure appearing on the horizon, Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee for president next year. His polling tells this story plainly: Trump is up roughly 50 points over his nearest competitor nationally, and although his lead isn't quite as commanding in the early-voting states, it is still pretty daunting (Trump is up roughly 30 points in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina). Voting will begin next month, meaning there just isn't much time left for any of this to change -- and no real reason to think it will.

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December 14th will mark the third anniversary of the "fake electors" in seven states attempting to overturn the will of the people by fraudulently claiming that Donald Trump had been elected president. This is a more important anniversary than you might think, since in some states the statute of limitations for the crimes committed that day will run out. This means if the fake electors haven't faced formal charges before that date, they will never be prosecuted. Which is why today Nevada announced charges against six Republicans who pretended to be valid presidential electors in 2020 and submitted official-looking fraudulent paperwork (with their signatures on it) to the Senate and the National Archives, claiming Donald Trump had won their state (even though they knew this was completely false):

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Republicans are in disarray. Let's start with that this week, shall we?

This week in the Senate, Republicans spent five whole hours ripping into one of their own. A group of GOP senators tried to force the hand of Senator Tommy Tuberville over his petulant hold on fast-tracking all military promotions, but to no avail.

The House, meanwhile, voted for an Israel military aid bill that is going nowhere in the Senate because (among other reasons) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is diametrically opposed to the strategy.

The House also took the time to vote down a censure of a Democrat that drew Marjorie Taylor Greene's wrath, but also voted to let George Santos keep his seat. On both votes, there were significant numbers of Republicans crossing the aisle to vote with the Democrats.

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I realize it is incredibly early to make such a statement, but it truly seems like the 2024 general election campaign for president is kicking off this week. Sure, we're still something like 100 days away from even the first of the primaries, but at this point -- barring any political earthquake -- both parties seem to have all but settled on their nominees. This isn't too unusual for the Democrats, since they've got a sitting incumbent president in the White House, but it is extremely unusual for the Republicans. However, Donald Trump's continued strength in the polls means the chances are far more likely than not that America will see a rematch of the 2020 contest between Trump and President Joe Biden.

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When I was born, there had only been one U.S. president impeached in all of American history. When I was a child, impeachment proceedings were launched against a second, but he resigned before the House of Representatives could impeach him. But since that time, a president has been impeached three times: Bill Clinton for lying about having sex with a White House intern; and Donald Trump both for trying to strongarm the leader of another country in order to create some dirt on his political opponent, and then for instigating an insurrection attempt rather than facing the reality that he lost his re-election effort. Now we stand at the brink of a possible fourth presidential impeachment in my lifetime.

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We hate to do this (as we suspect we'll be doing it recurringly for the next year or so), but once again the biggest political news of the week came from the legal system. Almost all the news was from the Republican side of the aisle, because of course it was. (And we promise that our subhead this week will be explained in due time, too... but not until the very end of the column.)

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Two Republicans went on trial this week. One of these trials just concluded while the other will stretch on for a while. The two aren't connected in any way, it was just a coincidence of the legal calendar that they both got underway this week. But both are important milestones, in different ways, so it bears taking a look at what is going on.

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Donald Trump's legal calendar for early 2024 is filling up fast. Today, the federal judge in Washington D.C. who is overseeing Trump's January 6th trial set the trial's start date for March 4th. As many have noted, this is one day before fifteen states will hold their primaries on "Super Tuesday." While some are expressing astonishment that the trial date is surprisingly early, I find myself frustrated that it is actually scheduled far too late -- because by the time it is over, Trump may well already be the de facto Republican nominee.

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