In the end, it wasn't even close. Yesterday, Ohio voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have taken away their own rights. In this particular case, it wasn't directly about abortion rights, instead it was the right of a majority of voters in the state to amend the state's constitution. Republicans wanted to raise the threshold from a simple majority to a supermajority of 60 percent. The voters voted "No" on the issue by a margin of 57 percent to 43 percent -- a pretty resounding 14-point rejection.

But of course this wasn't just about some arcane governmental rules. It was a stalking horse for another Ohio ballot initiative, one which will appear on this November's ballot. And that one is about abortion. If yesterday's vote had been successful (if the proposal had passed), then the abortion amendment would have had to get at least 60 percent of the vote to pass. It is currently polling in the high 50s -- which was the entire point of the exercise.

The November referendum, if it passes, will enshrine abortion rights in the state's constitution. This will mean two things: the state-level politicians and the state courts will essentially be removed from the process of making abortion laws; and, secondly, the only way to change this in the future would be through another ballot referendum which either overturned or otherwise changed the new amendment. Just like on the national level, when something is part of the constitution (federal or state), the legislature can't pass unconstitutional laws which contradict it. Well, they can try, but then the judges can then toss such laws out (since judges are bound to follow the constitution and interpret whether laws are allowable or not, but have no power to change the constitution's text at all). And no vote in the legislature can overturn a constitutional amendment -- to change that, another constitutional amendment is necessary (see, for reference: Prohibition).

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Donald Trump's legal team has reacted to the election-interference indictment of the former president with a rather novel legal strategy. They're essentially claiming that Trump never believed he lost the 2020 election -- and if you listen to what he has to say about it even now, he still believes he somehow won. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, delusional.

Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election. That is a fact. His losses in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona sealed his fate. It wasn't even particularly close in the Electoral College -- Joe Biden won 306 votes to Trump's 232. Trump would have had to shift 38 of those votes to his column to have won, which would have meant shifting a minimum of three of those battleground states. And there was no evidence in any of them of any sort of fraud or any other inaccuracies that would have led to flipping the state. Not one. Ipso facto, Trump lost.

The election interference case against Trump will attempt to prove that Trump both knew this and even admitted it to others on occasion. So Team Trump will attempt to prove that Trump never admitted the truth and to this day still does not believe it. Their legal argument is that Trump is deluded and nothing can change his delusion in any way -- no matter how many people tell him he is wrong and that he lost, he will never believe it.

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The Republican Party, as time goes by, has become less and less a fan of democracy. This is a direct result of both their policies being unpopular and their fealty to Donald Trump driving away voters who used to be in their camp. So they figure if they can't win a fair vote, they'll just change the rules.

This is happening in plenty of places, but all eyes will be on the anti-democratic effort in Ohio tomorrow to restrict citizens' ability to enact policies by direct democracy. Ohio Republicans, it bears pointing out, have already gerrymandered their state in extreme ways -- which leads to laughably lopsided results:

Donald J. Trump won 53.3 percent of Ohio's votes in the 2020 presidential election. But Republicans control 67 percent of seats in the State House -- and 79 percent in the State Senate.

That's some prime, grade-A gerrymandering, you've got to admit. But unfortunately for Republicans, Ohio is one of those states where long ago Progressives (and other reform-minded political parties) forced changes to wrest some political control out of the hands of the politicians and put it directly into the hands of The People. This happened way back in 1912, in Ohio.

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You'll have to excuse us for thinking that this week's momentous events were all the direct result of a lost opportunity. For all the people who are grumbling that Donald Trump should have been criminally charged with trying to subvert American democracy and the will of the people a lot earlier than now -- which, by the way, now includes Trump himself complaining that it should have happened earlier -- let's place the real blame where it belongs: on Mitch McConnell and all the other cowardly Republican senators who voted with Trump in his second impeachment trial. If McConnell and nine more GOP senators had stood firm and done the right thing back then -- mere days after the January 6th insurrection attempt -- then we simply would not be where we are now.

McConnell, weasel that he is, first delayed the start of the Senate trial (after the House impeached Trump in record time) so it wouldn't finish until after Trump left office, and then used his own inaction as an excuse not to do the right thing. He could have started the trial with plenty of time to go before Trump left office, but he didn't. Instead, he explained he was voting for Trump because people who had already left office shouldn't be subject to impeachment and removal. This, after refusing to start the trial while Trump was still in office -- a weaselly move if ever there was one.

But removal from office isn't the only penalty that can be imposed by impeachment and conviction. While an impeachment trial cannot levy punishments such as imprisonment or fines (which are reserved for the criminal justice system), it can impose political punishments, up to and including barring someone from ever holding public office again in this country. Any public office.

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Donald Trump, the former president of the United States, was arraigned today in a federal courtroom on some very serious felony charges. The most striking thing about today's events, however, was how routine they have now become. This is (depending on how you count them) either the third such indictment of Trump or the fourth (I would say third, as the previous court filing was merely a superseded indictment that beefed up his second indictment, so the two should really be seen as only one). And Trump could have one more serious indictment and arraignment in his very near future, in Fulton County, Georgia. As with just about everything to do with Trump's presidency, this is all unprecedented. But it's also becoming routine.

The media knew this, and today's coverage was a lot more low-key than it had been previously. They knew they weren't going to get any shots of Trump inside the courthouse, and they were further constrained by the fact that no helicopter/drone footage of the motorcade was possible (due to D.C. being heavily-restricted airspace, for obvious reasons). To make up for the lack, Trump allowed a media vehicle to ride with his motorcade, so we got shots through the windshield of the arrival and departure of the Trump convoy. The crowds outside the courthouse were a lot smaller, continuing a trend. And from the early accounts, even the proceedings inside the courtroom were a lot more relaxed than the previous two Trump has faced.

We're not quite at the point of: "In other news, Donald Trump was arraigned on more felony charges today -- meanwhile, in sports...." But we're certainly closer than we were in the first two arraignments.

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While it is certainly now going to be a one-subject week, I thought it'd be worth it to take a little pause between Trump's new federal criminal indictment and his impending arrest and arraignment tomorrow to take a look into an aspect of all of this that is (at least, for the moment) being overshadowed by Trump's new felony charges: what is happening at the state level. I will admit that I am partly doing this because I had at least three-quarters of yesterday's pre-indictment article already written, and it seems a shame to just toss it out. But now I have a larger point to make about six other states as well, which I'll get to at the end.

To begin with, though, here's what I had teed up for yesterday (the opening paragraph, obviously, is now out of date):

Michigan

Two weeks ago, Donald Trump revealed that Special Counsel Jack Smith had sent him a letter informing Trump that he was officially a target of an investigation into the events surrounding the failed insurrection attempt at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. Since then, the political world has been on "indictment watch," awaiting news that Trump has been indicted for even more criminal activity than he already has. This waiting game started with just the federal investigation led by Smith but has now grown to also include the investigation into Trump and his minions in Georgia (since she had previously cleared the courthouse schedule for the first three weeks in August). But so far, the indictments that have actually been handed down during this waiting period have all been for other cases dealing with other alleged crimes. The most recent of these dropped today in Michigan.

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It has been one of those days as a political commentator where you have to chuck out what you've been working on and start all over again. While I had three-fourths of a column written about new election-interference indictments handed down in Michigan today, late in the day (East Coast time) Special Counsel Jack Smith's federal grand jury indicted Donald Trump on four felony counts, all having to do with Trump's Big Lie that the 2020 election had somehow been stolen from him.

I just finished listening to Smith give his brief statement to the press and then sat down and read all 45 pages of the indictment -- which I urge everyone to take the time to do. I will doubtlessly have much more to say about it all in the coming days, but wanted to write down a few snap reactions and then indulge in a bit of speculation -- on a mystery that will likely be solved by the rest of the political journalistic world by the time the sun goes down (if they're worth their salt at all, that is): who are the six unindicted (as of yet) co-conspirators?

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Nothing is ever completely inevitable in politics, because there is always the possibility of some outside event completely turning the political world on its head. But it's getting harder and harder to use any other word to describe Donald Trump's run for the Republican presidential nomination. The only real big chance this has of changing will come during the debates, but even that has to be seen as a real longshot, at this point. After all, Trump may not even show up for the debates, since he has such an enormous and very comfortable lead in the polls and since precisely zero of his challengers has made any sort of splash with the Republican electorate to date. And if he does show up and debate his opponents, Trump will use the same playground-bully style he always does, and the crowd will eat it up with a spoon. Trump is perhaps not completely inevitable, but he is certainly approaching inevitability.

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As the ghost of Richard Nixon might have warned Donald Trump: "It's not the crime, it's the cover-up." While the political world was all breathlessly awaiting a new Trump indictment over the failed January 6th insurrection attempt, the special counsel surprised everyone by superseding his first indictment instead -- the one dealing with Trump's refusal to return national security documents which were not his. And it was a bombshell.

The 60-page indictment accuses Donald Trump in great detail of not only concealing boxes and boxes of documents from being searched (after he received a subpoena to return all the documents), but then trying to cover up this crime by having his henchmen go down to his Florida resort and delete all the video footage showing how the crime was carried out -- right after that video footage was also subpoenaed. Thankfully, the henchmen were not successful in this endeavor. But it now appears they have been caught red-handed trying to destroy evidence of a crime. Which, of course, is also a serious crime. Just ask Tricky Dick Nixon, he'll tell you. Well, he would if he were still alive, at any rate.

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Forget about term limits -- what American politicians need is a mandatory retirement age. Once they hit that age, they would no longer be eligible to be elected to any federal office. This is a radical proposal that would likely require a constitutional amendment, I fully admit, but I still feel the effort would be worth it.

I write because of two recent videos making the rounds, one of a Democrat and one of a Republican. The Republican is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (age 81), who completely froze in the middle of a sentence while talking to reporters. McConnell experienced what can only be described as "brain lock." He stops speaking and stares off into space. His colleagues and aides eventually hustle him away from the podium, but only after almost 20 seconds of very cringeworthy silence. The Democrat is Senator Dianne Feinstein (age 90), who had her own "senior moment" in a committee. They were all voting on something or another, but when Feinstein's name was called she mistakenly thought it was still time to give speeches about either supporting or rejecting the vote. She rambles on for a while until she is stopped by her colleagues and aides, and (embarrassingly) is finally prompted: "Just say 'Aye'." Both episodes show the obvious need for and end to the gerontocracy in Washington.

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