First, there was the rather-disappointing Muellermas. Now, millions of Americans are waiting (and tweeting about) the impending "Arrestmas." For those using the hashtag, their schadenfreude is off the charts. Which is completely understandable, since people have been waiting for over two years since Donald Trump left office for him to face any sort of legal comeuppance whatsoever. And what seems like the first indictment out of the chute is the most minor, in terms of legal consequence and criminal culpability. Still... we may see Trump in a "perp walk" this week, and at this point, who doesn't want to see Trump in handcuffs... or at the very least, see his mug shot?

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Apparently, there was a big murder trial down South that culminated this week, but we have to admit that since it wasn't an overtly political case, we just didn't pay much attention to it. Instead, as always, we had our nose to the grindstone of sifting through the week's political news so that you don't have to. In other words: Welcome to another installment of Friday Talking Points!

We're going to start this week with some good news. Not great news, mind you, but pretty good nonetheless. A spate of actual bipartisanship broke out in the Senate this week and with amazing speed (for Congress in general and for the Senate in particular) they came up with proposed legislation that might actually have a chance of passing. Well, passing the Senate at least, since nobody has any clue of what the GOP House will do these days.

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We have to begin today with a look at the woes of the Republican Party. Because, when you think about it, why not?

The most amusing news (speaking from across the political aisle) all has to do with the Republican Party trying to come to grips with another presidential nominating process with Donald Trump as the 800-pound elephant in the room. Most of the party establishment would dearly love to see literally anyone else win the nomination than Trump, but they also fear the prospect of Trump going rogue if he doesn't win and launching his own third-party bid.

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Remember the midterm election campaign last year? Remember what Republicans ran on? Apparently they're counting on everyone just conveniently forgetting, and pulling their usual "bait and switch" trick by loudly proclaiming they have a sweeping "mandate" on all sorts of stuff they barely (if ever) mentioned while running for office while largely ignoring the things they did actually run on. With the House of Representatives in Republican hands now, we will all get to see their real agenda, as opposed to the agenda they sold to the voters last year. The open question is what the public will think of it all.

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The 2024 campaign has begun. Not the big one -- not the race for president, that already started when Donald Trump threw his hat in the ring laughably early, in a naked attempt to avoid justice. Instead, this one is closer to home for me. Representative Katie Porter announced today that she is running for Dianne Feinstein's Senate seat. Which means California may get the first truly open Senate race since 1992 (when Feinstein first got elected). And since it's California, there is no real question of a Republican winning the seat, since they are all but irrelevant out here.

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After an excruciatingly-long battle, newly-anointed Speaker Kevin McCarthy began business in the Republican House of Representatives today. He's already reportedly having problems with the first order of business -- voting for a package of rules the House will operate under for the next two years. Some (especially on the left) are making bets on how long McCarthy will even be able to keep his gavel, since one of the new rules will allow any one House member to call what is essentially a "no confidence" vote to oust McCarthy at any time. Or to sum all of this up, the rollercoaster ride we all went through last week doesn't look like it's about to end any time soon.

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Welcome back to the second of our year-end awards columns! And if you missed it last Friday, go check out [Part 1] as well.

As always, this is long. Horrendously long. Insanely long. It takes a lot of stamina to read all the way to the end. You have been duly warned! But because it is so long, we certainly don't want to add any more here at the start, so let's just dive in, shall we?

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Today Donald Trump was publicly accused of four serious crimes by a unanimous vote of the House Select Committee on January 6th. The committee made referrals to the Department of Justice, and the committee will release both their final report and voluminous amounts of evidence in two days. For now, they released their "executive summary" of what the final report is going to say. This is unprecedented territory, but then so much of Trump's political career would also fit that description, so it's hardly unusual for him.

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We had fully intended to begin today's column with the news from Georgia, to celebrate Senator Raphael Warnock's re-election. At some point, we would have gotten around to some snark directed at Joe Manchin, since he wouldn't be such a pivotal vote any more, given the 51-seat majority Democrats will now enjoy. And as an afterthought, we would have tossed in Kyrsten Sinema's name as well, since she deserves a heaping helping of snark as well.

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Donald Trump doesn't want to be elected president. Instead, he would much prefer it if here were simply anointed president, or perhaps crowned president. If elections and democracy get in the way of his main goal, he freely jettisons them. This has been obvious to most people for a very long time, but he recently removed all tiny shreds of any remaining doubt. He openly called for the "termination" of the United States Constitution, in order that he (somehow) can be immediately reinstated as the "rightful" president.

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