In America, elections are almost never nullified. They are contested, they are recounted, they might even be challenged in court, but it's rare indeed for anyone to even propose that an election's entire result to be tossed out so that a new election can be held in its place. It's just not a common occurrence. In fact, it is so rare that I can't even remember when the last "do over" election of this nature even happened.

However, when the results of any individual election simply cannot be trusted with any degree of integrity, then there is no real recourse other than to void the results entirely and start all over again. It's a radical solution, but sometimes desperate times call for such desperate measures. And the situation in North Carolina's Ninth Congressional District must now be seen as so damaged that there really can only be one acceptable repair, and that is to start all over.

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As time goes on, America seems to be taking a big step backwards on the long road toward voting equality for all. This election cycle saw a gubernatorial candidate refuse to recuse himself from overseeing the elections process in his current job; what appears to be a blatant effort to throw an election in North Carolina by a shady Republican operative; and the usual GOP bag of tricks when it comes to voter roll purges, long polling lines, and challenging in various ways the outcomes they didn't like. In short, if we're not already there, we're certainly approaching a crisis in confidence over the way Americans vote and the way those votes are counted.

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Maybe it's the holiday season, but for whatever reason, today while reading the news I had one of those moments of synchronicity, where a song just pops into your head unbidden, grabs ahold of your psyche and refuses to let go. So I thought I'd share it with everyone.

The story I read which caused this to happen was an update on one of the many federal court cases proceeding against President Donald Trump. It was filed by the attorneys general for Maryland and the District of Columbia, and it charges Trump and Trump's D.C. hotel (which he has not divested himself of financially) with violating the "emoluments clause" of the Constitution. The update reported that the judge in the case has ruled that the discovery phase will now begin, which will give the attorneys general the power to issue subpoenas to everyone involved, up to and including departments of the federal government.

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Welcome back to Friday Talking Points, after our one-week Thanksgiving break! Hope everyone had a great holiday and didn't eat too much turkey.

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But there's another sticking point that arose in the 2016 election cycle that is going to be incredibly important in the 2020 race, and that is how the candidate debates will be conducted. The last time around, the system was gamed by one particular candidate, which absolutely should not be allowed to happen next time. Democrats should hold as many debates as they think the public will pay attention to, for starters. Limiting the number of debates to favor a particular candidate should be a thing of the past, period.

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General Motors just announced several plant closures and over ten thousand layoffs, in a bid to restructure their operations for the future. Americans aren't buying so many sedans any more, so GM is shuttering some plants that make these cars. This includes a plant in Ohio, after President Trump personally promised workers that no factories would be shutting down there. Trump even went further, by personally advising Ohio workers not to sell their houses and move since manufacturing jobs would be such solid future prospects. So the GM announcement came as a rather personal blow to the president.

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Another challenge has emerged for Nancy Pelosi to deal with, in her bid to become speaker of the House again. The so-called "Problem Solvers Caucus" (which includes nine Democrats) is demanding changes to the House's rules, and they have drawn a metaphorical line in the sand over three provisions they want to force Pelosi to adopt. In other words, the Problem Solvers are creating problems for Pelosi.

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That headline represents a distinction with a difference, as it could determine the next speaker of the House of Representatives. Is not voting for Nancy Pelosi for the speaker's chair the political equivalent of voting against Nancy Pelosi? Because, politics aside, there is an enormous difference between the two in terms of the rules of the House.

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It is rare that I leave myself open to being accused of being too Pollyannaish or otherwise sticking my head in the sand, but today I feel there's definitely a risk of this. Because I am not all that concerned about our new Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker -- although I do realize there are plenty of others who are. But I think that while the pushback against his appointment is necessary and should be pursued by Democrats as vigorously as possible, in the end the real fight is going to be over the next actual attorney general, not the acting one we have now.

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Most Americans, not being political wonks, have largely moved on from the midterm election results. The mainstream media has also largely been ignoring the still-developing story, for two reasons: (1) they really kind of blew it on Election Night, uniformly coming to the wrong conclusion very early in the evening ("the blue wave is not appearing") and so they're now avoiding having to correct their misinterpretation; and (2) there's a recount in Florida again! Woo hoo! Break out the video clips of that poor myopic cross-eyed guy with the magnifying glass -- that's always fun to run, right?

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