President Joe Biden now has an official impeachment inquiry investigating him in the Republican-held House of Representatives. It is the most singular such inquiry in American history, since nobody -- not even the people who have been pushing the idea -- can say precisely what crime Biden has supposedly committed. So for now, they're just investigating him for the crime of (take your pick): being Joe Biden. Or being a Democratic president. Or beating Donald Trump. Or (most likely, given the Republican monomania on the idea) being Hunter Biden's father.

None of these things are actual crimes, it bears pointing out. But that simply doesn't matter to the House. They're merrily on their way to impeaching Biden for one reason and one reason alone: because Donald Trump wanted them to. Trump is still miffed (to put it mildly) that he's the only U.S. president to have been impeached not one time but twice. So, as far as he is concerned, Republicans have a duty to turn the tables and impeach the man who beat him at the polls, to try to weaken him for the presidential rematch that is shaping up for next year.

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The United States House of Representatives has gone fishing. They've already been fishing in the same waters for months, but they've now done the equivalent of putting up an official "Gone Fishin' !!" sign on their door. They have yet to catch anything even remotely edible, but they remain ever hopeful.

For the first time in American history, an impeachment inquiry into a sitting president has been approved by the House without any actual "high crimes and misdemeanors" specified. Oh, they have their suspicions about what crimes President Joe Biden may have committed, but no actual evidence of anything. Hence the fishing expedition. Every single House Republican voted to authorize an impeachment inquiry, while every single Democrat voted against it.

House Republicans know what crimes and misdemeanors they'd like to uncover the proof of, but after months and months of searching they still haven't a single shred of evidence to back any of it up. They are pretty free and loose with their accusations against Biden, accusing him of bribery and profiting off of official actions he took when he was Barack Obama's vice president. Again, no evidence of this has ever been shown. On the one concrete thing they repeatedly accuse Biden of doing (getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired), their facts are 180-degrees from the truth of what actually happened. They have even taken to accusing Biden of somehow being bribed while he was out of office and a private citizen, even though this doesn't make any sense whatsoever. There can't be a quid pro quo if there is no earthly way for Biden to provide any quo, to put it another way. And they have no proof of any bribe ever reaching Joe Biden at all, for anything.

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Satanism has become a bone of contention in the Republican presidential primary. No, really! We're so far through the looking glass that you just can't make stuff like this up anymore, since reality provides an adequate diet of "sentences I thought I would never write."

It started with an modern annual tradition. In Iowa, the Satanic Temple successfully petitioned to erect their own holiday display in the statehouse, alongside the Christian and Jewish displays. They put up a mirror-bedecked goat's-headed statue, wearing a pentagram/wreath on his chest. Because, you know, the holidays!

This is all part of a multifaith effort -- or perhaps multi-"faith" effort might be more accurate -- of Americans who get annoyed each year that their government allows religious imagery on public property. Several spoof "faiths" have made this point over the years in various ways, and holiday displays have been a favorite (and festive) target.

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Rudy Giuliani is about to find out the exact pricetag for destroying two innocent people's lives. And it could be as high as tens of millions of dollars. A jury may decide that Giuliani owes the people he defamed as much as $47 million -- and that's before they get around to assessing emotional and punitive damages on top of the base award. And this is just the first lawsuit Giuliani faces for his serial lying about the 2020 election. No matter what the jury settles on as a punishment for Giuliani, it may wind up being small potatoes if the voting machine company Dominion wins its own defamation lawsuit against Rudy -- because they're suing him for a cool $1.3 billion.

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I am frantically trying to get ready for the holidays, which includes getting ready for our year-end awards columns. Normally I would post this second-round plea for nominations for these awards between when the first installment runs and the second. But this year I have decided to run the columns on the Fridays right before the holiday weekends, meaning few people will be paying attention during the between-the-holidays week. So I decided to put this call out early.

As always during December, we would also humbly point out that it is a dandy time to donate to the site, as we haven't even hit halfway of our annual pledge drive target yet. So if you have the means and the time, please consider funding this site for all of next year. Click on the thermometer above and it will take you to the donation page. And thanks!

Without further ado, here are the categories for the second and final segment of our year-end awards column. If you missed it, you can also check out the first list of nominating categories, which ran last week.

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We return after our extended holiday break to a growing realization in the political world. We had already come to this conclusion a while back, but it seems more and more people are now realizing that, barring any force majeure appearing on the horizon, Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee for president next year. His polling tells this story plainly: Trump is up roughly 50 points over his nearest competitor nationally, and although his lead isn't quite as commanding in the early-voting states, it is still pretty daunting (Trump is up roughly 30 points in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina). Voting will begin next month, meaning there just isn't much time left for any of this to change -- and no real reason to think it will.

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President Joe Biden seems to be having some trouble getting young voters enthused about voting for him next year. There's a very simple answer to this problem -- one that he should adopt as soon as possible. He should announce that he has "evolved" on the subject of legalizing the recreational use of marijuana for adults, and unveil a new plan to make it happen on the federal level. This wouldn't be anywhere near as risky as the first time the word "evolve" was attached to Biden getting out in front of a political issue. For Biden, it'd be seen as a real Nixon-goes-to-China shift in position, which would only add to its appeal. And it is tailor-made to get young voters to the polls in droves (as well as plenty of older voters as well).

There were two developments in the ongoing governmental retreat in the War On Weed this week. As of today, Ohio adults can now both legally possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana, as well as cultivate it at home. They can't yet legally buy weed, because the marketplace regulations are not in place, but from today on Ohioans can have and grow weed without fearing arrest or worse. This is the 24th state to legalize recreational marijuana, which is not quite half of them, but does now contain over half of the American population. Legal weed is where most Americans live, to put it slightly differently (and ungrammatically).

The second development is not as tangible yet, but -- if he wasn't just speaking off-the-cuff without really meaning it -- the relevant Republican House committee chair indicated that it'd be fine with him if the District of Columbia enacted some sane rules on a legal marijuana marketplace. This is a complete 180-degree turn for the Republican Party -- again, if he actually follows through on his statement.

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December 14th will mark the third anniversary of the "fake electors" in seven states attempting to overturn the will of the people by fraudulently claiming that Donald Trump had been elected president. This is a more important anniversary than you might think, since in some states the statute of limitations for the crimes committed that day will run out. This means if the fake electors haven't faced formal charges before that date, they will never be prosecuted. Which is why today Nevada announced charges against six Republicans who pretended to be valid presidential electors in 2020 and submitted official-looking fraudulent paperwork (with their signatures on it) to the Senate and the National Archives, claiming Donald Trump had won their state (even though they knew this was completely false):

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'Tis the season once again to solicit nominations for our year-end awards. Welcome to the first round of categories!

Before we get to the list, a few words on the rest of the year's calendar. Although I am probably going to regret this later, I have decided to run the awards columns later rather than earlier. This means that this Friday and next Friday, our usual "Friday Talking Points" columns will appear. But then our first awards column will arrive on December 22nd, with the second installment appearing between the holidays, on December 29th. This means working the final week of the year for me, but since the holidays fall on Mondays this year I think it'll be manageable (as I said, I may come to regret those words later!). To make it more so, I won't be posting any original columns on any of the other days in the final week of the year.

New Friday Talking Points columns will resume on the first Friday of the new year, January 5th.

For now, here is the list of categories for our year-end awards. If your memory needs refreshment for any reason, check out last year's awards to see all the previous winners.

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I read a rather interesting article in my local paper this weekend which put forth an idea that has the possibility of injecting some excitement into President Joe Biden's re-election campaign. The idea's a pretty simple one: Vice President Kamala Harris should voluntarily announce she will not run for her office again on Biden's ticket, and instead will be returning to California to run for the governor's seat in 2026. This would free Biden up so he could name a new running mate, which could indeed generate some enthusiasm among the Democratic voting base.

I'm not going to quote from the article, since it was written in awfully dismissive and snide terms (I am not familiar with the author and know nothing about his politics, but I assume they lean a lot more rightward than mine do). But the ideas contained within the snark are still interesting nonetheless.

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