Wednesday witnessed one of the most extraordinary events in recent political history. With two critical Senate races underway in Georgia — with Republican control of the Senate at stake — two prominent allies of a Republican president traveled to the state to urge voters not to vote for Republican candidates.

Remember the dossier? Many journalists (not to mention the FBI) worked hard to confirm its allegations against Donald Trump. They failed miserably. But even then, some Democrats, and their allies in the press, refused to admit the dossier was BS. Instead, they argued that since it had not been proven untrue, it must be true. With that in mind, what standard of proof should apply to the Hunter Biden story? One thing is certain: Republicans and conservatives should not fall into the “not proven untrue” trap. It’s the wrong standard to apply to serious allegations. Instead, media organizations should be working to confirm the details of the Hunter Biden emails. If they succeed, they’ve got a big story. If they fail, they can report that the story could not be confirmed. It’s a very simple approach — too bad many news organizations are not following it.

It’s like Russiagate all over again, this time with the Post Office. The news is filled with reports of President Trump’s “assault” on the U.S. Postal Service. The president, Democrats say, is deliberately slowing mail delivery and crippling the Postal Service so that it cannot handle an anticipated flood of voting by mail in the presidential election. Former President Barack Obama says Trump is trying to “kneecap” the Postal Service to suppress the vote. Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the president is trying to “sabotage” the Post Office. The only problem: It’s just not true. Herewith, a commonsense explanation of what’s going on.

This is the first “Byron York Show” podcast since February. Even though it’s the no chit-chat podcast, I need to explain what’s been going on. The short version: I have written a book. It’s about the long effort to remove President Trump from office, and it will be published on September 8. The title is Obsession: Inside the Washington Establishment’s Never-Ending War on Trump, and if you would like to pre-order, here is the Amazon page. In this new podcast, I discuss some of the reasons why I wrote it. There’s some news in the book, and I’ll be talking about that a lot more as we get nearer to publication. Also on this episode: The latest on the riots in Portland. Why do the Trump administration and the governor of Oregon seem to be saying such different things about their so-called agreement on the future of federal law enforcement in the city?