President Joe Biden seems to be getting more engaged in the process of the midterm election campaign of late. He has been travelling around the country a lot more (partly this is due to the fluctuating state of the COVID pandemic, of course), he has been making the case for his own record of accomplishments a lot better, and he now seems to be openly considering making a dramatic move that he has actually supported all along: forgiving at least $10,000 of student debt. Notably, this comes only days after Senator Elizabeth Warren publicly urged Biden to start using executive orders to get some things done now, while it could matter for the party's chances in the fall. Maybe Biden got the message.

Of all the things Biden could do with the stroke of a pen, there are two that stand out above all the rest: cancelling student loans and forcing drug companies to lower the prices on their medication. Those two alone would be gigantic leaps forward, at least in the political sense. High drug prices are something everyone hates -- everyone not either on the payroll of or otherwise beholden to Big Pharma. And it consistently winds up near the top of the list in things American voters would like to see the government accomplish, across party lines. While not quite as universal, at least partially forgiving student loans is politically important for one specific reason: the demographic it would help the most.

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Utah Democrats have just announced they're going to try an experiment. Instead of running a Democratic candidate in the upcoming Senate race, they are instead throwing their weight behind an Independent candidate, Evan McMullin. By doing so, they hope to boost his chances over the incumbent Republican Mike Lee. This is an experiment, so there's no guarantee it'll work -- but it undoubtedly will give McMullin a much better chance at beating Lee, so it will be very interesting to see play out.

America has two dominant political parties with a smattering of much smaller third parties. So when one of the big ones decides to sit out an important race, it is indeed noteworthy. Utah hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate in over half a century though, so it's not like the Democrats had any real viable shot of dethroning Lee. But in a three-way race, they would probably have siphoned off enough votes to make it impossible for any third-party candidate to win.

McMullin ran as an Independent in the 2016 presidential race, mostly to give Republican voters in Utah a more palatable choice than having to vote for Donald Trump. He pulled in an impressive 21.5 percent of the vote in the state, but Trump still won the state with 45.5 percent. Hillary Clinton got 27.5 percent, meaning that 49 percent of the vote went for either the Democrat or McMullin. McMullin was either on the ballot or a write-in candidate in many other states, but other than Idaho (6.7 percent), he failed to top even two percent of the vote anywhere. Obviously, he was a "favorite son" candidate in Utah itself, and nothing more.

Of course, nobody knows how he'll do this time around. But Utah does have a history of electing strong conservatives to the Senate who are still rational (see: Mitt Romney) and have not gone down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. Mike Lee, on the other hand, started as a Tea Partier and has now gone full MAGA. So this will be a race between the Trump wing of the Republican Party and what's left of the old establishment Republicans.

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Happy Earth Day, everyone!

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?!?

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Today, I am going to serve mostly as a stenographer. Because all Democrats should really take five minutes and watch one of the most amazing political statements I've seen in a very long time. The key to the effectiveness of this speech is the righteous indignation of the woman speaking. It is heartfelt, absolutely authentic, and a study in barely-controlled rage. Which is exactly what a whole bunch of other Democrats should be expressing right now.

The woman speaking is Mallory McMorrow, a state senator in Michigan. She delivered this speech on the floor of her legislative chamber. As she makes immediately apparent, the speech is a reaction to another senator using the vile and disgusting smears that the Republican Party has gleefully latched onto to demonize their opponents, while they attempt to remove all discussions of any adult relationship that they do not approve of from all public schools.

Republicans have latched onto two words: "grooming" and "pedophilia." This dovetails nicely with all the QAnon lunacy, and also continues a smear that was effectively used against gays in the 1970s and 1980s (and even beyond) -- that they were all constantly "recruiting" children to gayness. One state senator in Michigan obviously used this language against McMorrow, and she took righteous offense. As well she should have.

So today, no further commentary is really needed. I invite everyone to watch the video or just read the following transcript. I took the time to write it all out because I couldn't find a full transcript of the speech anywhere else and felt it was worth writing down. One technical note: all emphasis (italics) was added by me, but I was in fact rather restrained in doing so. If you listen to the video, there are a whole lot of other phrases I could have justifiably italicized. That's the beauty of the speech, in fact -- the righteous indignation in McMorrow's voice as she speaks.

-- Chris Weigant

[Video taken from Michigan Senator Mallory McMorrow's tweet, which appears with the following introductory text:

Senator Lana Theis accused me by name of grooming and sexualizing children in an attempt to marginalize me for standing up against her marginalizing the LGBTQ community... in a fundraising email, for herself.

Hate wins when people like me stand by and let it happen. I won't.]

Thank you, Mister President.

I didn't expect to wake up yesterday to the news that the senator from the twenty-second district had, overnight, accused me -- by name -- of grooming and sexualizing children, in an email fundraising for herself.

So I sat on it for a while wondering: "Why me?" And then I realized: because I am the biggest threat to your hollow, hateful scheme. Because you can't claim that you are targeting marginalized kids in the name of, quote, parental rights if another parent is standing up to say: "No!"

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Donald Trump has taught the Republican Party many things that have directly conflicted with long-standing party orthodoxy, so it shouldn't really come as that big a surprise that Republicans are now embracing using the power of government to punish corporate behavior they don't approve of. This is the party formerly known as the champion of the free market, mind you. The party that fought hard for corporations to be considered citizens with full constitutional rights, including the right of "free speech." All of those ideals have been conveniently tossed on the ideological scrap heap, though, as Republicans now fully embrace using the full power of government to punish corporations for speaking out on politics.

This isn't just "picking winners and losers" in the marketplace, either -- a concept Republicans also (theoretically) used to be against. It is more about causing fear in corporate boardrooms that they could be next if their corporation does something the most extreme right-wing politicians do not approve of. Such as speaking out against an unpopular law.

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Yesterday I wrote in support of what Senator Elizabeth Warren is calling on her fellow Democrats to do (essentially: pass whatever Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema can agree to, and get Biden to issue a few impactful executive orders). Today I thought taking a look at what Democrats should be saying about their opponents would be a good follow-up, as the midterm campaign season heats up.

This could always change, of course, but right now the smart bet would be to paint the entire Republican Party with the brush that Senator Rick Scott -- the man in charge of the Senate caucus tasked with getting more Republicans elected -- has so helpfully provided. This effort has already begun, and it hopefully will grow a lot bigger over time. Because for once, the path forward for Democratic messaging is about as clear as it can be.

Scott released his very own Republican agenda, to show the voters what he would prioritize if the GOP retook control of the Senate. This was a rebuke to the actual Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, who is betting on Republicans being able to run without ever hinting at what they'll do if they get to take charge again. This offended Scott's sensibilities, because he still believes that politicians should indeed level with the voters about what their party is about. Most of the rest of Republicans these days are content to just be against everything Democrats are attempting to accomplish, while only speaking of cultural hot-button issues when asked what they'd actually do if they got back into power. But Scott rejected this and put forth his own plan. Salon snarked about the title of this sweeping document: "For some reason [Senator Rick] Scott dispensed with a hyphen in the title of his '11 Point Plan to Rescue America' -- is punctuation 'woke' now? It's so hard to keep up," but the contents are anything but laughable.

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Senator Elizabeth Warren published what amounts to a call to action for her fellow Democrats in today's New York Times, and it's really hard to disagree with anything she has written. Her main point is that if Democrats sit back and try to run on their record (since 2020), they are going to get badly beaten in the midterm elections. Without coming right out and saying it, Warren calls on Senate Democrats to pass whatever Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema can manage to agree to. And for President Joe Biden to start using his executive pen far more aggressively than he has, so far. There is no guarantee any of this will be successful, but if Democrats don't at least make the attempt, they're going to be toast in the midterms. This is Warren's main point, and like I said, it is hard to disagree with her.

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It wasn't the biggest or most important political news of the week, we admit, but the one story that definitely caught our attention was the earthquake which reverberated outward from the Democratic National Committee. This Wednesday, the D.N.C.'s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted to upset the early-primary applecart to allow for the possibility of a complete shakeup of the roster of early-voting states (currently: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina). For the 2024 presidential race, all the states have now been encouraged to apply for a spot on the early calendar -- with no guarantees for the four states that have previously enjoyed the privilege of going first.

This is the type of change in the political system that is usually left in the realm of arcane political-science academic theorizing ("I think the system would work better if we changed this...") that usually comes to naught in the real world. However, the D.N.C. has now officially tossed the old rules out and instituted a new set of criteria for the states which are allowed to go first. And things don't look especially good for Iowa (and, to a lesser extent, New Hampshire). One of the criteria is having a diverse electorate, which is going to be very hard for Iowa to credibly claim.

This has already set off a very quiet feeding frenzy among the states. Several are already reportedly considering applying for early status (New Jersey, Michigan, even Massachusetts). Nevada is making a bid for the absolute front of the line -- the first state in the nation to vote. And this is all going to happen fairly quickly:

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There's a new poll out on the subject of what the American public thinks about schools that shows how wide an opening there is for Democrats to exhibit some leadership on the issue, especially considering how much political hay Republicans are planning on making over it all in the midterm elections. As a Washington Post article about the poll puts it, there is a "silent majority" that simply does not agree with the Republican position on things like banning books from school libraries and curricula, teaching sex and sexuality, or mentioning race and racism. But while a majority of the public can afford to stay silent on these issues, Democrats cannot. Which led me to an idea -- one I haven't heard anyone else put forward yet. Why not have a Democratic point person on education and educational issues that can articulate a clear position and back it up against the slings and arrows of the right? And who better to step into such a role than First Lady Dr. Jill Biden?

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It's time for another COVID checkup. I say this for two reasons, one personal and one media-related. The personal is that I just got my second booster shot this past weekend. Which I would have done anyway, because I personally trust medical science and want to be as protected as possible against the pandemic; but in the past few days I might have been more motivated to do so, if all the information I got was from television news. Because, according to them, it's time for everyone to panic once again.

The news media has taken a lot of flak for their pandemic reporting, some of it justified and some not. This is a deadly disease which has swept through the American population in multiple waves and is close to having caused one million American deaths. That's as serious as it gets, obviously. The number of deaths is almost certainly a lot higher than that, but when the official number does push through the seven-digit threshold, it will doubtlessly be big news. It is natural to note when such a milestone number has been reached, but what is less natural is to treat all COVID news as bad -- or to exclusively report on the bad at the expense of any good news at all. Which sums up the viewpoint of television news for roughly the past year or so.

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