The Washington Post is now reporting that Robert F. Kennedy Junior will not meet the criteria that CNN instituted for inclusion in the first general-election presidential debate. This is not really all that surprising, since the criteria were essentially written to exclude Kennedy and other third-party candidates. And while Biden supporters might cheer the news that only President Joe Biden and Donald Trump will participate, it does highlight the hurdles built in to the American political system for those without a "D" or "R" after their names.

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The biggest political news of the week by far was Hunter Biden being convicted in record time on all three felony gun charges lodged against him. The jury spent only about three hours before returning these verdicts, which completely undercut the narrative Donald Trump has been spouting about how the justice system is "two-tiered" -- by which he means: "weaponized against Republicans while Democrats get a free pass." Kind of hard to make that argument when the president's own son just got convicted of felonies and is facing up to ten years in prison.

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There was significant news today on reproductive rights, from two separate directions. The Supreme Court unanimously (!) overturned a case that challenged the F.D.A.'s approval of mifepristone, one of the two most commonly used abortion pills in the country. The unanimity was possible because the high court essentially punted on the legal question and instead ruled that the plaintiffs had no legal standing to bring their case. Meanwhile, in the Senate, a bill to create a federal right to in-vitro fertilization failed, mostly on party lines. Last week a bill that would have given federal protections to contraceptives also failed. Both will be used in campaign advertising by Democrats to paint Republicans as being against both contraception rights and I.V.F.

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Two weeks from tomorrow, CNN will host the first general election presidential debate of the 2024 cycle. This is unprecedented, because it will happen so early in the campaign season. In fact, neither person on stage will officially be their party's nominee at this point, since the conventions will happen afterwards. It will be "Presumptive Republican Nominee Donald Trump" versus "Presumptive Democratic Nominee President Joe Biden." That alone sets it off from every other televised presidential debate.

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Today a jury in Delaware returned guilty verdicts on federal felony gun charges against the sitting United States president's son. This is unprecedented in American history. No close relative of any previous sitting president has ever been charged with criminal behavior, so Hunter Biden will go down in the history books as the first.

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As I write this, the jury is now officially out on Hunter Biden. The jurors in the case against the president's son have heard all the evidence and have now retired to begin their deliberations. Although not as historical as Donald Trump being tried and found guilty of felonies, this is at least a historical footnote: the first member of an American president's close family to go on trial while his dad is still in office.

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According to Donald Trump and all his echo-chamber sycophants, President Joe Biden exerts an amazing amount of control over the entire country's judicial system. He has "weaponized" the Department of Justice, he has been waging "lawfare" against Trump, and his control reaches all the way down to state and local prosecutors as well. Biden pulls the puppet strings, according to them, and the entire judicial system dances to his tune. He uses this evil influence to "persecute" Trump (and, by extension, all his fellow Republicans). Trump swears retribution if he is re-elected (meaning that the entire scenario is probably just projection of his own desires).

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For a while, Donald Trump was known as "President Trump." Then he became (depending on your editorial whim) the "former president" or "ex-president." But the only valid title he really could claim after leaving office (former titles being no more than diplomatic politeness, really) was what one judge called him while turning down one of his numerous appeals: "Citizen Trump." Or, as the judge and the prosecution referred to him throughout his first criminal trial in New York City, merely: "Mister Trump."

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Well that certainly didn't take long! After less than 10 hours of deliberating, the jury in Donald Trump's first criminal trial returned their verdict. It was a sweeping one: guilty on all 34 charges. Donald Trump will henceforth be known as: "convicted felon Donald Trump."

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I realize that there is big legal news breaking today on two fronts -- to wit: the jury in the first criminal case against Donald Trump beginning their deliberations, and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's "What are you going to do about it, huh?" letter to Democrats in Congress (where he refused to recuse himself from any cases dealing with the January 6th insurrection or election cases concerning Donald Trump) -- but I am not going to comment on either of them (yet). Instead, I think an extreme anti-democratic idea in Texas needs highlighting, mostly for the brazen and shameless nature of it.

Last weekend, the Texas Republican Party met and approved their party platform for the year. It was chock-full of all the expected culture-war firebreathing, but there was one provision in it which is just breathtaking in its disregard for the majority of votes winning elections. Texas has long been wistfully viewed by Democrats as an enticing candidate for flipping red to blue, but this has so far not come to pass in any meaningful way whatsoever. Democrats get close to unseating people such as Senator Ted Cruz, but always seem to fall just short of doing so in statewide races. This appears to be worrying the Republicans, as evidenced by what they are now proposing.

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