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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There are two major political storms on the horizon that will both break long before the midterm congressional elections, but as it looks now there is one overriding issue in domestic politics that will likely be one of the core issues in the race no matter what. Yes, it's time once again to dust off the 30-year old quip from James Carville: "It's the economy, stupid." This time around, it could be narrowed to: "It's the inflation, stupid."

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I know this might astonish some folks, but it is indeed a fact of life in America that the children of famous and influential politicians occasionally cash in on their last name. Well, technically, they don't even have to have the same last name, they don't have to be children (they can be other family members or even close friends sometimes), and occasionally the "cashing in" is a bit more nefarious than just your garden-variety grifting. But the fact remains that a closeness (or even perceived closeness) to power is indeed a saleable commodity out in the marketplace.

The first example of this that I personally became aware of was when "Billy Beer" hit the market. This was a pretty blatant example of cashing in on closeness to political fame, and it was relevant in a way that people who didn't live through the 1970s may have problems understanding. Because back then, along with pet rocks and Cabbage Patch Kids, people actually collected beer cans. [Full disclosure: I would have to go check, but I may indeed still have a can of Billy Beer out in my garage.] President Jimmy Carter's brother Billy, who was notorious at the time for having a Brett Kavanaugh-sized thirst for beer, was happy to allow his name and signature to appear on the cans of suds for a hefty fee. While the novelty cans did indeed cause a splash in the marketplace (as every beer can collector rushed out to buy one), within a year the brewery closed its doors in failure. It seemed even the president's brother couldn't sell a beer that (by all accounts) tasted horrible. How horrible? Billy himself admitted that he didn't drink his namesake beer at home; he favored Pabst Blue Ribbon instead.

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History was made this week, as Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first Black woman ever confirmed to a seat on the Supreme Court. It's rare that such a milestone is reached, and it is unquestionably worth celebrating when it does finally happen. Especially since the first Black woman ever to become vice president was the one presiding over the Senate as it cast this historic vote.

In unrelated news, the nation's first Black president visited the White House this week for the first time in five years to give a speech at a signing ceremony for an executive order which will close a loophole in the Affordable Care Act. This will provide access to health insurance for more than one million Americans, so it is also well worth celebrating.

Congress even actually managed to do something this week, too (right before disappearing for yet another multi-week vacation), as the Senate unanimously passed two bills sanctioning Russia for its brutal invasion of Ukraine which are now heading to President Joe Biden's desk. For all the talk from Republicans about Biden somehow "moving too slowly" on aid to Ukraine, it's worth noting that this is the first time Congress has gotten its act together on the crisis since before it began. All previous attempts to legislate any sanctions or aid at all have failed, due to Republican resistance.

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