This article is mind-bendingly long enough, so we're not going to bother with any other introductory words at all. Instead, let's just get right to the awards, shall we?

Also as always, it is long. Really, really, insanely long. You have been warned!

And also as always, we'll be back again next Friday for [Part 2].

The official YouTube video of the opening of Jimmy Kimmel Live! has (as of this writing) 15.7 million views. If you haven't seen it yet, it is well worth watching. In fact, today we are pre-empting our own political column to present a full transcript of what Jimmy had to say last night in his opening monologue, because it is an important statement on free speech that stands on its own, and one that everyone who cares about free speech should either read or watch.

As always, it's a marathon. It's really, really long. Don't say you weren't warned! And since it is so long, that's all the introduction we're going to bother with.

Ready?... everyone buckle up... here we go....

Now, normal people can be excused for being surprised that Trump is still Trump. Most people have lives to lead and plenty of other things to do, so they simply don't pay much attention to politics. But tens of millions of them made the time this week to tune in to the first debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. And it was like going to a family Thanksgiving dinner and once again having to put up with your crazy uncle -- because you had somehow forgotten just how bad he truly was. And still is.

Since it seems like a week for Silly Season columns, today I thought we'd examine an editorial quandary we've been faced with. Because the Republican vice-presidential candidate presents us with a challenge. He would now prefer to be known as simply: "JD Vance" -- sans punctuation, in other words. So do we respect his wishes or continue (as we started doing when we first wrote his name) with our standard style-guide form: "J.D. Vance"?

But we have to begin today with a very sobering piece of data, just to put everything in some perspective. We (rather obviously) personally live and breathe the political scene, and it is a fair assumption that anyone who regularly reads this column all the way to the end (a weekly marathon, 'tis true...) is also pretty plugged in to the follies of the everyday political landscape as well. We all pay attention, in other words. Not just to the large and meaningful events, but also to the small and amusing. But it cannot be repeated enough: this is not exactly normal. Most Americans just don't pay all that much attention to politics. Like, at all.

That's what the ad promised, at any rate. The television ad that introduced the Mac only ran nationally once (during the Super Bowl, no less), but it's still one of the most memorable ads of all time (which it should be, seeing as how it was directed by none other than Ridley Scott). This all seems entirely appropriate for the revolutionary product it was promoting. In the timeline of technological advancement in average people's lives, there was "before Mac," and then there was "after Mac" -- which is the world we all live in today. And it all started forty years ago.

As always, we must begin with a warning for all readers. It's long. Really, really long. Horrendously long. Insanely long. It takes a lot of stamina to read all the way to the end. You have been duly warned! But because it is so long, we certainly don't want to add any more here at the start, so let's just dive in, shall we?

I am not alone today -- far from it -- in mourning the news of the passing of Gary Richards. For those of you who don't now or have never lived in or around Silicon Valley, he was a feature writer for the San Jose Mercury News. But few called him by his given name, because for over three decades he was much more well-known by the title of his column series: Mr. Roadshow. His beat was traffic. And the roads. And drivers. And all things transportation, really.

There wasn't a whole lot of actual debate about differences in ideology... some, but not a lot. It was instead more of a series of one-on-one shouting matches between two of the candidates. More on those in a moment.

Now, you may be thinking: "Has Chris gone bonkers? Why is he jumping the gun, two days early?" The answers to these important queries are: No, Chris has not gone any more bonkers than usual; and, in fact, the rest of you are celebrating a fictitious event on a fictitious anniversary date. So there.

As always, we must begin with a stern warning: this is an incredibly long article. So long you likely won't make it to the end, at least not in one sitting. It is, as it always is, a marathon not a sprint.

In this day and age, that is a rarity. The Republican Party has been taught many bad habits by Donald Trump, but one of the worst of all is utter shamelessness, which I would describe (politically) as the inability of your fellow citizens' opinions to sway yours in the least. Trump's "come Hell or high water" attitude and his absolute refusal to ever admit he was wrong about the slightest thing (see: Sharpiegate, et al) has caused Republicans like Ted Cruz (a shameless politician if there ever was one, even before Trump appeared on the scene) to completely divorce themselves from public opinion. They will just insist that down is up, that black is white, and that everyone else in the world is wrong while they have a secret line to the absolute truth (with zero evidence to back it up, of course).

On Tuesday, a young aide who worked for Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, appeared in a surprise House committee hearing. The previous week, the committee had let it be known that there would be no hearings over the two-week Independence Day break. But a day beforehand, a new hearing was announced without fanfare and without any details.

The witness who appeared, Cassidy Hutchinson, had apparently been getting threatening messages from those still surrounding Donald Trump. They read like mob bosses leaning on a witness who might spill the beans:

It's been a rather bizarre week, which is even more odd since Congress is still off lollygagging, rather than doing the people's business as they are handsomely paid to do. Perhaps all these vacations have a cost? That's what we were thinking, at any rate, when we heard the news today that the House Select Committee on January 6th has punted the ball yet again, and will not even be scheduling public hearings until June, rather than next month. Seriously, guys? You're going to break the biggest political scandal story of the year right at the start of summer?!?

We do have to warn readers, right up front, that this is an insanely long article. If you're one of those "tl;dr" types of people, we would strongly advise you to go find a short listicle somewhere else, to read instead. Because this will be a marathon, not a sprint (as always).

Of course, hearing "Delta," what popped into our minds for this tectonic shift was Animal House's John Belushi asking his fellow Delts: "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!" Of course, his speech ended when his frat brother stood up and proclaimed: "I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part." To which Belushi responded: "And we're just the guys to do it!"

Normally, such a development would be a reason for glee among the other political party, but this is not merely a matter of Republicans believing that the world is flat, the moon is made of green cheese, or tax cuts always pay for themselves -- no, this is no mere pedestrian fantasyland they have now taken up residence within. This is far more dangerous.

Ronald Reagan famously made a lot of political hay out of that slogan. The phrase worked so well because Americans generally favor optimism and a bright future over the gloomier alternatives. All modern presidential candidates since Reagan have struck optimistic themes while campaigning. Except one.

Donald Trump actually did campaign on optimism, but only during his first run. He borrowed the language of populism and painted a rather rosy worldview for the forgotten blue-collar Midwestern worker, back in 2016. By doing so, he flipped the "Big Blue Wall" that Democrats had previously relied upon to give them the necessary Electoral College votes, and he thus won the presidency.

Before we begin with the awards, I would just like to thank all the people -- both online and in person -- who helped out by giving me their suggestions and nominations for all of these awards. I have tried to credit individuals where appropriate, but I probably forgot to do so here and there too, so I apologize in advance.

As astounding a question that is, there are really only two answers to it: yes or no. Either Trump is intentionally torpedoing his chances of re-election, or he is just trying to re-run his 2016 playbook in the hopes that it'll produce the same miraculous victory for him. But either way, what is becoming more and move evident is that President Donald Trump is currently losing. Bigly.

Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Michael Caputo is absolutely freaking out, man. The dude really needs to mellow out.

Granted, their job was a tough one from the get-go. During the Democratic convention, there was a mix of (as Joe Biden framed it) the light and the dark. But the Democrats' message was pretty clear: we're in a dark period right now, and we can move towards the light with the repudiation of Donald Trump and all his enablers. The Republican message was the opposite, which is a pretty hard case to make, considering the current state of affairs. According to the Republicans, everything is just peachy right now, but if Biden wins, things will become apocalyptically bad overnight. There's just one problem with this formulation, however, and that is that we are hardly experiencing Utopia right now, as the COVID-19 deaths climb towards 180,000, unemployment is still in double digits -- higher than at any point during the Great Recession -- and the economy looks like it is now stalling due to the Republicans refusing to pass another pandemic stimulus bill. In other words, the American public is fully capable of looking around at their own lives and seeing that Utopia is far from what they're experiencing right now.

I'm sorry if that sounds a little like a very bad Dr. Seuss rhyme, but that's about the size of our political discourse these days, like it or not. And McConnell is doing nothing to elevate things, because he has taken to accusing his detractors of practicing "McCarthyism."

Now, you may be thinking: "Has Chris gone bonkers? Why is he jumping the gun, two days early?" The answers to these important queries are: No, Chris has not gone any more bonkers than usual; and, in fact, the rest of you are celebrating a fictitious event on a fictitious anniversary date. So there.

We've refined our ever-changing column format this time around, adding a "campaign news" segment at the start, followed by the three tiers of candidates and then some conclusions. This format may endure, or it may get tweaked further as the race develops, but for now it'll have to do.

It's been a few weeks since I last wrote about the Democratic presidential field, and we've had a few announcements in the meantime, so it's time once again to quickly run down who is running for president and who is not. If you think the answer to that first question is "pretty much everybody," well, you're not alone in thinking that. We're likely only about halfway through the announcement season, and we've already got a wealth of Democrats to choose from. It's already gotten to the point where sitting down with a blank piece of paper and listing them all is tough for even the wonkiest among us to do (I just tried this, even after I had been browsing the Wikipedia page on the subject, and I only managed to remember 11... I forgot to list Gillibrand...). And this is likely only going to get harder to do, as more and more people decide to jump in.

The article I'm referring to was written by Bob Cesca and it appeared in Salon. It was titled "Scandal Double Standard: Democrats Pay The Price For Every Misdeed While The GOP Skates." I encourage everyone to read it in full, because it's worth your time. It covers more than the one "scandal" I was thinking about writing about today, but it does such a good job there that it's worth a long excerpt:

But since these columns are always not only monstrously but downright scroll-bar-defyingly long, let's just dive right back into the 2018 McLaughlin awards, shall we?