Nothing is ever completely inevitable in politics, because there is always the possibility of some outside event completely turning the political world on its head. But it's getting harder and harder to use any other word to describe Donald Trump's run for the Republican presidential nomination. The only real big chance this has of changing will come during the debates, but even that has to be seen as a real longshot, at this point. After all, Trump may not even show up for the debates, since he has such an enormous and very comfortable lead in the polls and since precisely zero of his challengers has made any sort of splash with the Republican electorate to date. And if he does show up and debate his opponents, Trump will use the same playground-bully style he always does, and the crowd will eat it up with a spoon. Trump is perhaps not completely inevitable, but he is certainly approaching inevitability.

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As the ghost of Richard Nixon might have warned Donald Trump: "It's not the crime, it's the cover-up." While the political world was all breathlessly awaiting a new Trump indictment over the failed January 6th insurrection attempt, the special counsel surprised everyone by superseding his first indictment instead -- the one dealing with Trump's refusal to return national security documents which were not his. And it was a bombshell.

The 60-page indictment accuses Donald Trump in great detail of not only concealing boxes and boxes of documents from being searched (after he received a subpoena to return all the documents), but then trying to cover up this crime by having his henchmen go down to his Florida resort and delete all the video footage showing how the crime was carried out -- right after that video footage was also subpoenaed. Thankfully, the henchmen were not successful in this endeavor. But it now appears they have been caught red-handed trying to destroy evidence of a crime. Which, of course, is also a serious crime. Just ask Tricky Dick Nixon, he'll tell you. Well, he would if he were still alive, at any rate.

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Forget about term limits -- what American politicians need is a mandatory retirement age. Once they hit that age, they would no longer be eligible to be elected to any federal office. This is a radical proposal that would likely require a constitutional amendment, I fully admit, but I still feel the effort would be worth it.

I write because of two recent videos making the rounds, one of a Democrat and one of a Republican. The Republican is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (age 81), who completely froze in the middle of a sentence while talking to reporters. McConnell experienced what can only be described as "brain lock." He stops speaking and stares off into space. His colleagues and aides eventually hustle him away from the podium, but only after almost 20 seconds of very cringeworthy silence. The Democrat is Senator Dianne Feinstein (age 90), who had her own "senior moment" in a committee. They were all voting on something or another, but when Feinstein's name was called she mistakenly thought it was still time to give speeches about either supporting or rejecting the vote. She rambles on for a while until she is stopped by her colleagues and aides, and (embarrassingly) is finally prompted: "Just say 'Aye'." Both episodes show the obvious need for and end to the gerontocracy in Washington.

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Are we alone? That question has been around since humankind began, but in the past decade or so we're finally getting closer to finding out what (if anything) the American government knows about this question that it isn't telling us. Do aliens exist? Is there proof? The House of Representatives held a public hearing on this question today, where some rather extraordinary claims were made.

Here's how HuffPost reported on the most stunning of the testimony:

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I begin today by apologizing for getting ahead of the calendar, as the official "Silly Season" hasn't quite kicked off in Washington yet. Congress has yet to scarper off on their annual five- or six-week vacation (with full pay, courtesy of American taxpayers), so we have yet to hit the real dog days of summer in D.C.

Speaking of dog days (and silliness), I had to grin at a big important political story today in Politico, because of its opening paragraph:

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One month from now, the first Republican presidential debate will take place. What will happen there is anyone's guess at the moment, but what is already assuredly true is that every candidate not named "Donald Trump" has to see the first debate (and the ones that will follow) as absolutely critical for their chances of success. Bottling lighting at a debate is likely going to be the only way any of them can stand out in any way, and the only chance any of them (excepting perhaps Ron DeSantis) will have of creating a surge of support in the polls.

It is still early, in terms of public polling, since many people are just not paying that much attention to presidential politics at all and likely won't at least until the debate cycle begins. But what's notable in the polling conducted so far is how static the race has been, up to this point. There are four clear groups within the Republican field. The first one is named "Donald Trump," and the second one is named "Ron DeSantis." Trump has consistently been out front by a country mile since polling began. He has hovered between roughly 45 percent and 55 percent for the entire time. Meanwhile, DeSantis has formed his own tier with a solid grip on second place, with his polling fluctuating between roughly 20 percent and 30 percent.

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We do try to resist the urge (we really do!), but this week it was impossible to focus on just about anything else in politics other than the tsunami of bad legal news for Donald Trump. Remember how Trump dominated each and every news cycle for over four years? Those days are back, sadly enough, and will likely continue (at some degree of intensity or another) for the foreseeable future. He is the quintessential car wreck towards which we all must dutifully rubberneck, so here we go....

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Almost 2,000 years ago, the Roman poet Juvenal asked the question: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" which is usually translated into English as: "Who will watch the watchmen?" When you give a group of people supreme power over others, how do you keep that power in check? It seems a fitting title today, as the Senate Judiciary Committee just passed (on a party-line vote) a bill which would require the Supreme Court to adopt a binding code of ethics.

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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is about to play some hardball in the Senate, in an effort to break the logjam on promotions in the military which has been thrown up by one recalcitrant senator, Tommy Tuberville. The Alabama Republican has thrown what can only be described as a hissy fit over the fact that the military respects the rights of the women who serve this country. Tuberville is the lone senator objecting to each and every Pentagon promotion that must be Senate-approved (as all the higher ranks are) until he can somehow force the military to deny women their reproductive rights. This has not just annoyed the military and Democratic senators, it is also not exactly supported by Tuberville's own party (who used to champion themselves as being "strong on the military"). And it has already affected the military readiness of this country, which is a dangerous thing. Schumer and other Democrats (including President Biden) have been denouncing Tuberville's military promotions boycott, but now Schumer appears ready to try a new tactic: give Tuberville an up-or-down floor vote on the issue to shut him up.

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Donald Trump might need a bigger henhouse soon, as more and more of his legal chickens keep coming home to roost. After a very long two years of a whole lot of nothing happening (at least publicly), all of a sudden there is so much prosecutorial news it's hard to even keep track of it all. So I thought it'd be worth doing a rundown of all Trump's legal woes, as things stand right now (barring any further breaking news today).

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