With Israel and Ukraine on fire and the U.S. House paralyzed by Republicans willing to put our country at risk in the name of their extreme ideology and fealty to a failed former president, two slender rays of light managed to pierce the storm clouds.

In Atlanta this week, a pair of high-profile defendants accused of participating in efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election in Georgia pleaded guilty prior to the start of jury selection in state court. Trump loyalists Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, who had faced the threat of years in prison for violating Georgia’s anti-racketeering law, cut deals that will spare them jail time.

Like the others named in the Georgia indictment, Powell and Chesebro were blindly sycophantic as two of Trump’s legal advisers. Powell is infamous these days for declaring she would “release the Kraken” of apparently many-tentacled lawsuits that would prove Trump’s election victory had been stolen by the Democrats. Alas, the facts had no place in her legal strategy. Team Trump’s many lawsuits were chopped and fried like calamari, but even her attempts to backtrack the Kraken attack didn’t diminish her role in the attempted election fraud. She pleaded guilty to misdemeanors.

Chesebro, another pro-Trump mouthpiece who helped choreograph the cabal’s 2020 fake electors’ plot, pleaded guilty to a felony charge Friday. Chesebro wrote memos detailing how Republicans could create the illusion of legal rigor by sending false slates of presidential electors to Congress with the goal of overthrowing the election. As an architect of the anti-democratic scheme, Chesebro is capable of testifying against defendants Trump and attorney John Eastman.

Chesebro’s guilty plea cuts particularly close to home here in Nevada for the Trump acolytes who lead the state Republican Party — party Chairman Michael McDonald and Republican National Committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid. Text messages obtained from McDonald’s cellphone by the FBI during its election fraud investigation show the chairman’s Nevada inner circle discussing Chesebro and the fake elector plan.

McDonald and DeGraffenreid were among the Trump true believers who participated in the election charade by signing a fake elector certificate declaring Trump the victor in Nevada in 2020 despite losing by approximately 33,000 votes to Joe Biden. They gave themselves over willingly and knowingly to the attempted fraud.

It would be foolish to think they didn’t know they were participating in a national con job. Text messages made public during the investigation make clear McDonald’s concern about the optics of the constitutionally corny political theater.

In a reply to fellow fake elector Shawn Meehan’s text about McDonald’s concerns about the plan, DeGraffenreid wrote, “I know. He’s concerned that we will look like foolish crybabies.”

At this point, I think we can conclude those worries were justified.

Called before the House committee charged with investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, McDonald and DeGraffenreid invoked their Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination hundreds of times. After bellowing for months about the grand scheme to steal Trump’s victory, they were suddenly microphone shy.

In June of this year, both men were granted limited immunity to testify in Washington, D.C., before a grand jury in connection with a Department of Justice investigation of the fake elector scheme. Their silence continued in August after Trump was indicted on four counts related to the attempt to overthrow the results of the election.

Of all the rights they’ve flouted and tarred, they’ve proved beyond a reasonable doubt their appreciation for the right to remain silent.

Meanwhile, polls continue to show Trump leading other announced Republican presidential candidates as the state GOP claims the Democrats are trying to deprive them of their right to rig their own presidential nomination process by insisting on a caucus over a primary. DeGraffenreid himself recently reminded skeptics that the caucus “is open to every Republican in the state.” Yes, as long as they’re available at 5 p.m. on Feb. 8, 2024 – two days after the legally scheduled primary.

Observers of the state party know the after-dark-on-Thursday caucus is made-to-order for Michael McDonald’s monkey wrench.

All of this, of course, is reduced to minor mishegoss next to the GOP’s embarrassing and dangerous public breakdown in the House thanks to election denier Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio. A far-right political bully with exactly zero bills passed in his 16 years of huffing and puffing in Congress, by Friday Jordan’s political inflexibility after 16 days and three failed votes had come home to roost even in a party of Trumpian chickens.

At least one Republican, Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, got it exactly right when he rejected Jordan and told a reporter, “You don’t have a process where I play by the rules and these other people can’t and then they get what they want. That’s not American. Americans want fair play and rule of law.”

Nevada’s GOP officials should take note. Chaos and incredulity will reign until they get their own house in order.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family’s Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in Time, Readers Digest, The Daily Beast, Reuters, Ruralite and Desert Companion, among others. He also offers weekly commentary on Nevada Public Radio station KNPR.