Last week, Connecticut became the twelfth state to join the "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact" (usually referred to as the N.P.V. movement), which aims to legally ensure that the presidential candidate who gets the most votes nationwide actually becomes president. This interstate agreement won't take effect until the total number of their Electoral College votes hits 270, which is the number required to win the presidency. With the addition of Connecticut, they have now reached 172, which means they only need to add states with fewer than 100 more Electoral College votes for the plan to become reality.

In concept, the idea is a rather simple one -- each state has passed exactly the same law, which (upon the total number hitting 270) would require all of their electors to cast their vote for the presidential candidate who had won a majority of the national popular vote, no matter how each individual state had actually voted. So if one state voted narrowly for Candidate A, but Candidate B won nationwide, then all of that state's electors would be bound by law to cast their vote for Candidate B instead.

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Before we get to all the Trumpy news of the week, we had to headline what is going on in Paul Ryan's House, since it hasn't been getting enough attention yet. Because the House Republicans are revolting!

OK, we fully admit that we love to phrase such events using this pun, and we will even give proper credit here for where we first heard it. As a kid, we bought a book of "The Wizard Of Id" comics entitled The Peasants Are Revolting! (to which the king replies in an aside: "You can say that again!"). Since then, we love to use it whenever applicable. This week, it's Paul Ryan's turn (and there's even royalty involved!).

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has agreed to meet with Donald Trump next month in Singapore, which will be a historic summit meeting. This meeting will in fact be unprecedented, as no North Korean leader has ever previously sat down with a United States president. Predicting what will come out of this meeting is really anyone's guess, since both leaders can be described as mercurial (and even that's being polite to both of them, really).

Donald Trump has already convinced himself he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for even making the meeting happen. Well, perhaps... and then again, perhaps not. Unlike Trump, the rest of the world (and, assumably, the Nobel prize committee) will have to wait to see what actually comes out of this meeting before making such a determination. Nothing is guaranteed, in other words. The meeting could fizzle, and not produce much of anything.

One has to wonder exactly what Kim Jong Un is up to, because so far the impetus for this meeting has all come from him. After spending a year being as belligerent as possible, with multiple nuclear weapons tests and ballistic missile test-firings, Kim suddenly decided to reach out to Trump. This turnaround seems planned and stage-managed by Kim, so it's worth exploring what he hopes to get out of his sudden burst of diplomacy.

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Last night, Ohio took a half-step towards the goal of ending political gerrymandering by removing politicians from the process of redistricting House seats after every decennial U.S. Census. The ballot initiative that passed in last night's primary election is somewhat convoluted, but will at least provide some sort of brake on rampant gerrymandering for purely political purposes. It may only be a half-step (or, if you like baked metaphors instead, half a loaf), but it certainly is a half-step in the right direction.

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We are now exactly six months away from this year's midterm congressional elections. Today, four states are holding their primaries: Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia. This means the 2018 election season can be said to have already begun in earnest. There are two races everyone will be watching tonight, one on each side of the aisle. The Senate GOP primary in West Virginia is the more important of the two, but the Democratic governor's race in Ohio is also going to garner some attention.

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President Donald Trump announced today that he'll be revealing tomorrow afternoon whether he will be pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal or not. Predictions about what he's going to do have been ramping up, but nobody really knows what Trump will actually announce. But if he does decide to pull out of the deal, it could have major political implications in the midterm elections in one important respect: the price of a gallon of gasoline in America.

Gas prices fluctuate. A major part of this fluctuation is the unbridled greed of the oil companies and producers. This is not tied to politics (at least not domestic American politics) much, if at all. So ascribing political reasons for a spike in the price of gas is a dubious exercise at best, at least among economists. However, the electorate has very few actual economists within the ranks of the voters.

Probably more than any other day-to-day pocketbook issue, the price of gas hits home to anyone with a gasoline-powered vehicle. It's something to gripe about when the price goes up, because every couple of weeks it stares you in the face once again, at the pump. You can't avoid it, in other words, and neither is it buried inside some other expense (like your electricity bill, for instance). It's front and center, and if the price is 15 cents more per gallon than the last time you filled up, you notice it.

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Before we get to the fresh lies emanating from the Oval Office this week, we have to begin with a look back. Because not only has President Donald Trump now hit the milestone of lying over 3,000 times while in office, but apparently it's getting too much for even Fox News personalities to take.

Over the past 15 months, we've occasionally seen lists compiled of Trump's biggest whoppers, but these are usually posted as comments to other articles by fervent opponents of the president. That's where we've run into them most, at any rate. Which makes the following list all the more extraordinary, because not only is pretty comprehensive, it was broadcast by none other than Neil Cavuto, on his Fox News show. In other words, Donald Trump might just have had to sit through it. When even the Foxlandia cheerleaders are pointing out the mountain of lies Trump's been telling, you know we've reached some sort of tipping point (thanks, Rudy!).

We did a cursory search for a transcript of the Cavuto diatribe, but could not find one. So instead we present this summary list, compiled by Salon. Cavuto opened his show by first addressing the bombshell news that Rudy Giuliani revealed this week, that Donald Trump did indeed reimburse his fixer Michael Cohen for that $130,000 hush money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels. Then Cavuto really gained steam, and began to list all the lies Trump has so far told -- all of which are easily disprovable. Here's the list, from the article:

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I have to begin with my apologies to Mick Jagger and the gang for today's title. Mea culpa. But today certainly has been all about Rudy, so it seemed appropriate even if the reference was a bit weak. Although the lyrics: "When you change with every new day / Still, I'm going to miss you" may indeed wind up being applicable to Rudy Giuliani, or maybe even his new boss. One can always hope, right?

Last night, President Donald Trump's new lawyer went on Fox News to admit that both Trump and everyone around him have been flat-out lying all along about the payment of $130,000 in hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. This bombshell was almost casually dropped, appearing to catch even Sean Hannity by surprise. Other people it also apparently caught by surprise: the entire Trump legal team, and everyone else who works in the White House. But not, notably, Donald Trump himself. Rudy would never have taken it upon himself to change Trump's story in such dramatic fashion without Trump's prior approval, so I do take Rudy at his word that he had gotten Trump's approval to do so in advance.

So, Trump lied. It's still debatable whether it was a lie of omission or a lie of commission, but what is beyond doubt is that Trump did indeed lie. So did everyone else surrounding Trump and his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen who was asked about the payoff. Trump did indeed reimburse Cohen and, according to Rudy, also included enough on top to cover any possible taxes as well as a tidy profit for Cohen. Giuliani said this money was paid over time, through $35,000 monthly fees paid from Trump to Cohen. Giuliani even dropped a possible total number in one interview, after being asked how many payments it took: "Do the arithmetic, right? $35,000 a month, probably starting in January or February. By the time you get to $250,000, it's all paid off." So apparently the legal fee for paying the hush money was a cool $120,000 -- nice work, if you can get it.

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California's senior senator, Dianne Feinstein, has had a change of heart, it seems. It was reported late yesterday that Feinstein announced in an interview that she no longer opposes legal marijuana. No doubt that the fact that she's up for re-election this year in a state that already legalized recreational adult use of marijuana and the fact that she's drawn a progressive primary challenger both have a lot to do with her sudden epiphany. Feinstein has been, to date, one of the most strident anti-weed voices around, though, so this is big news no matter what her reasons truly are.

However, Feinstein's War On Weed record cannot be erased, no matter what her current position may be. Eight years ago, California had a ballot initiative that would have legalized recreational marijuana. But Proposition 19 failed to pass. Partly, this was due to the fact that the "No On 19" side was better organized and aired better television commercials. Dianne Feinstein chaired the "No On 19" effort. Six years later, Proposition 64 did pass, and once again Dianne Feinstein was chair of the "No" group. She took a very hands-on approach, in other words, while plenty of other Democrats were content to sit on the sidelines and see what the voters wanted to do. Some Democrats actually showed leadership on the issue -- the "Yes on 64" effort was led by Gavin Newsom, who could be California's next governor. But Feinstein's attitudes towards marijuana had been set in stone way back in the 1960s and -- until yesterday -- have not changed one iota. She's not just been against marijuana legal reform in the abstract, she's taken a very hands-on and active part in demonizing the idea.

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Yesterday I wrote about a politician committing what's known as a Kinsley gaffe (i.e., a politician accidentally telling the truth in public). Today, we have Donald Trump, who seems to have randomly stumbled upon a truth, by accident, with no actual intent whatsoever -- much like a broken clock will tell the right time twice a day, in fact. Of course, even this requires a generous reading of Trump's tweet, but that doesn't make it any less amusing.

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