It has become increasingly hard in our politically divided country to find any one single issue that pretty much everybody agrees with. The Biden administration just found one, though -- one that will resonate with football fans, hockey fans, basketball fans, country and western fans, rap fans, blues fans, rock-n-roll fans, and fans of almost every other type of music, sports, or pretty much any large performance of any type. And that's even before you add in the considerable power of the Taylor Swift fans. All of the people who enjoy all of these performances and sporting events have one thing in common no matter what their politics may be -- because nobody likes getting forcibly and brutally ripped off for ticket prices. Nobody. So the news today that the Biden administration and 30 individual states have filed suit against Ticketmaster/Live Nation for being a monopoly will be hailed as good news by pretty much everybody who doesn't directly earn their paycheck from the conglomerate.

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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 trail."

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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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Sorry, there will be no column today. I forgot I had an appointment at the eye doctor, and after getting my eyes dilated I can barely see the computer screen, much less type. So even posting a re-run column today is an impossibility. Mea culpa and regular columns will resume tomorrow. (Maybe I'll write one next week for Memorial Day, to make up for it....)

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

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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[Editor's Note: for some unfathomable reason, this didn't seem to get properly posted on Wednesday. I guess I just forgot to hit the "Publish" button at the end of the editing process? Well, for whatever the reason, mea culpa maxima and here is the column that should have appeared two days ago, and our apologies for the delay.]

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.

You'll have to forgive me for writing about this again (after doing so only a few weeks ago), but I personally have been waiting for this day my whole life. Not so much: "waiting for the day a rule would be published in the Federal Register," but more like: "waiting for a United States president to speak out on the subject while admitting reality."

President Joe Biden did so today.

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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.

Cohen, of course, is a total sleazebag. Everyone admits this, even the other witnesses in the case (one of whom called him "a jerk," and all of whom testified how hard it was to interact with Cohen). He's the ultimate New York City skeezy lawyer -- almost a walking, talking Jungian archetype. You wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that Fat Tony of The Simpsons had hired Cohen to "take care of" a problem or two, to put it a little more colorfully.

The problem for Trump's defense team is that while it will indeed be pretty easy to paint Cohen as a reprehensible character, doing so might not be anywhere near enough to convince the jury of Trump's innocence. After all, Trump's pretty sleazy himself. And he isn't exactly giving his lawyers much to work with.

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This week saw a real climax in the criminal court case against Donald Trump...

(No wait... sorry about that... let's try again, shall we?)

Donald Trump's trial coverage finally had a big "money shot" during this week's testimony...

(OK, we sincerely apologize, but we just couldn't resist!)

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.

Stormy Daniels spent the better part of two days testifying in a New York City courtroom, and from all accounts she did an outstanding job of it. She faced a withering cross-examination from Donald Trump's lawyers, but she weathered the storm (so to speak) and didn't back down. Trump's lawyers have been put in the impossible position of arguing that the sexual encounter simply didn't happen, and therefore Daniels made the whole thing up -- which precisely nobody believes. They tired to discredit Daniels as some sort of money-grubbing grifter who was profiting off of the whole thing, which (again) is a pretty impossible thing to plausibly argue when your client is the biggest grifter to trod the planet since P. T. Barnum. The high point of her testimony, for us, was when Trump's lawyer asked her: "You're celebrating the indictment by selling things from your store?" to which she replied with perfect aplomb: "Not unlike Mr. Trump."

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