There is a debate currently taking place within the editorial departments of some of the nation's biggest newspapers, on the subject of what their own professional ethics and standards should be when it comes to showing the aftermath of violent mass shootings. What it boils down to is this: "Does the country need another 'Emmett Till moment' -- a photo of a child's badly-mangled body who was killed by gunfire in a mass shooting?" Which is an interesting editorial question, seeing as how the American media has gotten more and more timid over time when it comes to showing the results of any violence, really.

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Last night, President Joe Biden gave only the second evening address (not counting speeches to joint sessions of Congress) of his presidency. The last time he did so was over a year ago. The subject of his speech this time was a grim one: the recent massacres of innocents in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. And all of the others which didn't receive quite as prominent media coverage, as well. He urged Congress to act, in the strongest possible terms. He pointed out that Republicans are the ones obstructing any progress whatsoever, and pleaded for some bipartisanship in the Senate.

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Last week, America experienced a racist extremist shooting up a grocery store, in an effort to kill as many Black people as he could. This week, America had to once again watch as innocent schoolchildren age 10 or under were massacred for no reason whatsoever. This is who we are, and it is shameful.

It is not, however, who we want to be. The public wants more and tighter gun safety laws, by an overwhelming margin. But even in the wake of the horrors of yet another slaughter of innocents, most people who follow politics don't expect much of anything to change. No new laws will pass the Senate, or if something does manage to be worked out, it will be weak and watered-down and likely ineffective at stopping such outrages from regularly happening.

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Here we are again. That, as you'll see below, is how I started an article written five years ago, after the Las Vegas slaughter. Because I find I cannot write yet another one of these articles, when nothing has changed and nothing is likely to change any time soon.

Politico just put out some new poll numbers, from an insta-poll taken after the Uvalde, Texas school massacre. They show pretty much where the American public has stood for quite some time now: gun control measures are either popular or overwhelmingly popular. By the numbers:

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As we continue to wend our way through primary season, we now turn to the two states with the most interesting races to be decided tomorrow: Texas and Georgia. Georgia is more interesting on the Republican side, while there's one Texas race that Democrats will be closely watching.

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We were reminded of the whole Wonderful Wizard of Oz metaphor early this week, when we saw Mehmet "Dr." Oz at a last-minute Pennsylvania campaign rally, holding up his smartphone to the crowd, as the disembodied voice of the great MAGA Dear Leader bellowed forth bombast and nonsense to the crowd. All it needed was some smoke and fireballs at the sides of the stage, really. It seemed to us (but then we do have a rather warped sense of humor...) that Oz was begging the crowd to please pay lots of attention to the man behind the curtain.

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Of all the different types of cycle that exist in politics, the one of overreach and backlash is one of the most interesting. We may be about to see one of these cycles happen in very accelerated fashion (since it usually takes years or even a few subsequent elections to fully materialize), although since we're at the beginning of the cycle it is impossible to now know how it will all play out.

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What is and what is not acceptable when it comes to public protest? This question has been growing for the past few years, and has come to the forefront with the leaked release of a Supreme Court draft opinion on abortion. So I thought it was worth exploring in general, even though (spoiler alert!) I do not personally have a clear answer or conclusion to that question.

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Intraparty, Republican-on-Republican violence aside, however, this was really a one-story week in Washington.

That story was the immense scoop of Politico publishing an almost-100-page draft opinion from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. This is virtually unheard of -- such a major leak from the Supreme Court. But it's easy to see why someone decided it was time to tell the public what was about to happen.

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It is undisputable that Donald Trump plumbed new depths for what the Republican Party considers "too far" for their own politicians to go. Trump proved that no scandal -- sexual, financial, business-related, personal, factual, political, international interference in American politics, white national, conspiracy theorist, or insurrectionist -- was "too far" for him to go, at least with his own massive and committed base of supporters within the party ranks. Many other Republicans either now in office or running for office have taken this new low standard to heart, as GOP politician after GOP politician is caught in scandals that previously would have forced them to resign or be voted out of office the first chance the voters had. The big unanswered question is whether any standard (no matter how low) even remains within the party for anyone not named "Donald Trump." How far is "too far," these days, for Republicans?

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