Does the emerging Senate "YOLO caucus" now have a new member? For those of you too out-of-touch to know, "YOLO" stands for "You Only Live Once." It is a slogan designed to urge people to do things they maybe normally wouldn't (for whatever reason). But now the term has been applied to a certain group of senators, and that group just might have picked up a new member.

The YOLO caucus isn't a real thing, so it's kind of silly to talk about its membership, since officially it doesn't have one (because officially, it doesn't exist). Unofficially, it stands for those Republican senators who now don't have anything to lose by opposing Donald Trump (on anything, really). They are senators who are now at the end of their political careers (or, at least, the "being a senator" phase of it, for now). They don't have to worry about being re-elected, because they are not going to be re-elected.

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Political wonks everywhere will be closely watching tonight as the Texas Republican primary runoff election returns come in. At stake is who will win the GOP nomination for a Senate seat now held by incumbent John Cornyn. Challenging Cornyn is Ken Paxton, who has now been endorsed by Donald Trump. But no matter which candidate emerges victorious, there's going to be a lot of bad blood left over, heading into the general election, which is going to require an enormous amount of money to be spent defending what should have been a fairly safe Republican seat.

This all means that almost no matter what happens in November, the entire fiasco is going to be seen as a win for Democrats. Even if Paxton or Cornyn does manage to defeat Democrat James Talarico in the general election, this race will have consumed a fortune in campaign donations that could have been spent elsewhere. The spending has already set records -- right now roughly $130 million has been spent on the Republican contest alone. That's just on the primary election, mind you.

What many political observers have been pointing out, in the waning days of the primary runoff, is how vicious the race has become between Cornyn and Paxton. These two guys quite obviously hate each other, and they aren't shy about letting their rage out in their ads. Will this mean that whichever candidate does emerge is too weak to win the general election? That's what Democrats are hoping for, and the level of vitriol between the two campaigns seems to suggest that it's at least a possibility.

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Today America memorializes 250 years of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country. Since America is currently at war once again, the question on my mind is how many of these brave Americans died in stupid wars? And which one was the stupidest?

Perhaps that's too harsh. Maybe the question should be what was America's most pointless war? That question (phrased politely or not) certainly is relevant now, with the current conflict right up there in the running for that ignominious award.

Donald Trump's war of choice with Iran is certainly a contender for the most pointless American war ever, but there are others which could also take the prize. The War of 1812 was pretty pointless, especially when you consider that we thought we'd just invade Canada, liberate them from their British overlords, and they'd be so grateful they'd celebrate and decide to join the United States out of sheer gratitude. Obviously, things didn't work out that way, which is why that misguided invasion is emblematic of that entire (and rather pointless) war.

Historians would doubtlessly argue about which of the wars America has fought deserve a nomination for the stupidest one ever. Pretty much every war we've fought since World War II -- from Korea onward -- would probably at least qualify. What was achieved by the Vietnam War, in the end? Or Iraq, or Afghanistan? Precious little.

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This is going to be a rather truncated column this week (at least the first parts of it), because we began today by writing a screed in place of our usual talking points, and it wound up so long that it's going to dominate the available room. So the other sections are all going to be heavily abbreviated, just to warn everyone in advance.

The most startling development in the political world this week was that Republicans in Congress (some of them, at least) seem to be waking up to the fact that Donald Trump's poll numbers are sinking like a stone and that the only thing he cares about is building his palatial ballroom and wreaking vengeance on anyone who annoys him (including plenty of Republicans).

Is this the beginning of a wider break from Trump for Republicans deeply worried about their prospects in the midterm elections? Only time will tell, but it's rather astonishing how fast things seem to be shifting. And this pushback is happening not just on one issue, but on a whole range of them.

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Tonight will mark not the passing of a torch, but instead the end of an era. Tonight, the last episode of The Late Show will air. Media historians in the future will probably look back at this as a turning point, signalling the end of the dominance of late-night broadcast television comedians to provide humor and ridicule about current events and the news. For me, this is a sad milestone.

Just to warn everyone up front: this is going to be more of a personal memoir than a deep analysis of popular culture trends. By writing it, I am definitely "dating" my own experiences as a member of the post-baby-boom generation. "The Posties" never really caught on, but I still like it as a "cusp of two generations" moniker. Later, we were called the "Me Generation" or perhaps the "MTV Generation" (or perhaps somewhere between the two), but I still like the breakfast-cereal zing of being one of the "Posties."

Sorry... where was I? Oh, right, warning everyone that this would be a dated and rather personal look back.

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We are now well into the primary election season, so it's time to take a look at the biggest burning question Democrats have at the moment: will they be able to ride a blue wave in November that is big enough to flip control of the U.S. Senate, or is this merely starry-eyed optimism run amok?

I should begin by saying that there is no clear answer to that question yet -- it's still far too early to make such predictions with any degree of accuracy. But the subject is back in the news after Donald Trump gave his endorsement to Ken Paxton in Texas, who is facing sitting Senator John Cornyn in a Republican primary runoff election next Tuesday. The winner of this contest will take on Democrat James Talarico in November.

But before we contemplate the repercussions of Trump's nod in Texas, let's take an overview of the national situation first. The current split in the Senate is effectively 47 Democrats (technically 45 Democrats and two Independents) to 53 Republicans. Because Republicans hold the White House, the vice president casts tie-breaking votes, meaning Democrats would have to pick up four seats to regain control (leaving the chamber 51-49 in their favor). Even for a midterm with a historically unpopular president, that's a steep hill to climb -- especially since the map of which seats are up for election isn't all that favorable to the Democrats.

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Can Congress manage to solve a problem that a huge majority of Americans agree exists -- but also one that people are fiercely divided on the best solution to? Or will the clock run out yet again, leaving us all in the dark?

Yes, those were intentional puns. Because the subject at hand -- once again -- is the changing of time twice a year, from standard to daylight savings and then back again. Almost everybody hates the changes -- that is the part we all agree upon. But what to do about it leaves people almost evenly divided, between those who want standard time year-round and those who prefer permanent daylight time.

I've written about this effort previously, as multiple Congresses have tried to tackle the problem, only to then ultimately decide that it's just not worth the hassle of half the country winding up seriously annoyed at the change. But maybe this time will be different? Sorry, but it's almost impossible not to work "timely" jokes into this discussion, intentional or not.

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This Wednesday, we will hit a political milestone which is rather grim for me to contemplate (please read this as a trigger warning: this is going to be a very dismal column, so please stop reading now if you aren't in the mood for that sort of thing). On May 20th, Donald Trump will have been in office for exactly one-third of his second term. It will mark 16 months from when he was sworn in -- but the grim part is that this means we've still got twice as long as what we've all just been through before his term will finally be over. When you consider what has already happened so far, contemplating another 32 months of it is downright frightening.

With Trump, the only constant is that no matter how many times you think to yourself: "Well, he's hit rock bottom -- surely he couldn't do anything worse than this!" the hard reality is that he always manages to outdo himself -- often within the same week.

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We began writing this column series lo these many years ago to help tongue-tied Democrats formulate snappy lines to use when being interviewed on television and/or to use in their campaign ads. These days, however, we have to wonder whether we should just pack it in and not even bother. We say this because Donald Trump keeps providing the best talking points Democrats could ever hope for, serving them up on a weekly basis. And this week's was an absolute doozy.

When a reporter asked Trump if Americans' financial situation was motivating him to make a deal with Iran as soon as possible, Trump responded: "Not even a little bit... I don't think about Americans' financial situation. I don't think about anybody."

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With less than a month to go before California holds its primary election, it now looks as if the state's Democrats are going to avoid disaster. That is good news for Democratic voters in the state, who outnumber Republican voters by about 3-to-2. But even the fact that we got so close to disaster is going to spur efforts to reform the state's current primary system.

Primary elections can be designed in a number of different ways. For the past 15 years, California has held what is usually called "top-two jungle primaries." Every candidate for every office from every party all appear on the same primary ballot, all jumbled together. The two candidates who finish in first and second places move on to the general election in November. All other candidates are out of luck, because there isn't even a write-in line on the November ballot.

This system has its benefits, but it also has its flaws -- some of which are pretty major. Reforming the system could involve just minor tweaks to the current system (such as allowing for write-in candidates on the general election ballot), or it could involve completely scrapping what we've got and choosing another system entirely.

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