With most of the "must-pass" legislation already out of the way for this year, both the House and the Senate are now planning a series of what are commonly called "messaging bills." These are bills that have one main intent -- not to pass the other house of Congress and become law, but instead to "send a message" to the voters. It's a polite way of saying "generating partisan talking points to use on the campaign trial."

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Donald Trump has broken many parts of the American political system. His supporters revel in this destruction, lumping it all in with Trump's battle to "drain the swamp" or fight back against a supposed "Deep State." His opponents decry Trump's shattering of political norms and conventions and rules (both written and unwritten) as a direct and existential threat to American democracy. But whatever you think, one thing seems more and more obvious. A lot of Trump's bull-in-a-china-shop destruction will outlive his time on the national political stage. And one of the biggest of these might be called "the death of shame."

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Presidential debate announcements, Michael Cohen testifying, and The Jerry Springer Show breaking out in a House committee -- it's been an eventful political week all around, folks!

But we have to begin today with a very sobering piece of data, just to put everything in some perspective. We (rather obviously) personally live and breathe the political scene, and it is a fair assumption that anyone who regularly reads this column all the way to the end (a weekly marathon, 'tis true...) is also pretty plugged in to the follies of the everyday political landscape as well. We all pay attention, in other words. Not just to the large and meaningful events, but also to the small and amusing. But it cannot be repeated enough: this is not exactly normal. Most Americans just don't pay all that much attention to politics. Like, at all.

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So it's now official: the presidential debates are on! Well, two of them at any rate -- and a lot earlier than normal. On June 27th, before the two men are even officially nominated by their respective parties' national conventions, President Joe Biden and Donald Trump will debate on CNN. Then on September 10th, they will meet again with ABC hosting. There will also be an additional vice-presidential debate, but as of yet no date has been announced for it. And Biden has already indicated that two will be the limit -- there won't be a third or fourth debate, these two will be it for this campaign season.

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Today saw a historic step taken on the road to finally ending the federal War On Weed. The Biden administration has now submitted a new federal rule on marijuana classification to the Federal Register, which will kick off a 60-day public commentary period. The new rule won't take effect for a while, in other words, but the clock has begun ticking at least.

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Today my eyes have turned towards Maryland, and not just to watch the video clips of the explosive demolition of part of the Francis Scott Key Bridge (which was indeed fascinating to see). The plans to fully reopen the port seem to be moving forward on schedule, which is doubtlessly some very welcome news for both the city and the whole state. But tonight I'll be watching Maryland for a different reason, since they are holding their primary election today.

The big race worth watching here is who will win the Democratic primary for an open Senate seat. The Republican primary became a foregone conclusion with the entry of the state's former governor, Larry Hogan. Which Democrat will face him could be crucial to control of the Senate this November, though.

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Today was probably the key day of the prosecution's testimony in the trial of Donald Trump. Michael Cohen, Trump's former "fixer," became the prosecution's star witness as he took the stand, since he is the one who can best tie together all the threads of the case introduced so far. Tomorrow will continue to be key, as the prosecution is likely to finish their direct questions and the defense will begin Cohen's cross-examination. The entire case could very well hinge on how the jury reacts to his testimony these two days, and whether or not they find him believable.

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You'll have to forgive us, but nobody really has any experience with this sort of thing -- an adult film actress/director testifying under oath in a criminal trial about a sexual encounter with a man who would go on to become president. Even Bill Clinton's got to be shaking his head in disbelief somewhere, one assumes.

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What we should all really be seeing, at this point, is a drawn-out split-screen moment. Call it a "split-screen couple of weeks," maybe. However, this hasn't really been the case, for two reasons. The first is that cameras are not allowed inside the courtroom of the first criminal trial of an ex-president in American history. So even following the trial at home is a once-removed experience: following along with the New York Times liveblog (who seems to have the most comprehensive coverage of all the newsfeeds I have sampled) as they document each development in the case, whether monumental or simply mundane. Snippets of what is going on in the courtroom appear all day long, from the jousting of the lawyers and the witnesses to the reactions of the judge and jury to whether Donald Trump seems to have fallen asleep again or not. Fascinating stuff, but not exactly the same as it would have been on live television.

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And so Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's doomed attempt to take down yet another Republican House speaker appears to have ended with a whimper, not a bang. After meeting with Speaker Mike Johnson twice (both yesterday and today), she appears to have backed off -- at least for the foreseeable future. With Greene, you never really know what she'll do next, but at least for the time being she appears to have been talked out of forcing her "motion to vacate the chair" onto the House floor this week.

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