Republicans, led by Donald Trump, now apparently want to rewrite the First Amendment's guarantee of the freedom of speech. Their interpretation of it seems to be that conservatives should be allowed to say whatever they want -- no matter how vile or vicious or hateful -- about whomever they want, while liberals should be locked up if they ever say anything negative about conservatives. That's how they want to define "free speech" these days: free speech for me, but not for thee.

This comes, of course, from the top down. Donald Trump was asked about the idea of the Department of Justice "going after" liberals for their "hate speech," and he told the reporter: "We'll probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. It's hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart." Got that? This is a White House reporter from ABC, and Trump is flat-out warning him that the government might "go after" him because he is not sufficiently loving towards the Dear Leader.

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Remember when people on the right side of the political spectrum were so incensed about the left's "cancel culture"? It wasn't that long ago. Conservatives railed at how people were being held accountable for things they said by being "cancelled" in one way or another. They called the lefties "snowflakes" who couldn't take what they saw as merely robust and unbridled free speech. Any rightwing free speech should be consequence-free in the real world, they argued at the time.

Well, times have changed. Now it is the right who has fully embraced cancel culture and (because they are in power now) are apparently about to put it on steroids. After the brutal assassination of a conservative activist last week, the right has been cancelling people with a vengeance. Anyone who posted any comment even slightly opposed to Charlie Kirk and what he stood for (some of which was pretty odious and downright racist) is being ferreted out and exposed publicly. People have already lost jobs over such posts. So much for "free speech," eh?

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This week, scientists revealed what they feel is convincing evidence that life previously existed on Mars. But, rather astonishingly, "Life On Mars!" headlines weren't the story of the week.

What should have been the political story of the week is also largely being ignored by the media as well. Vladimir Putin launched almost 20 drones into Polish airspace, which is a serious escalation since it's hard not to call this an act of war. The drones reportedly weren't armed with explosives, and Russia isn't taking any responsibility; but even so, invading another country's airspace is still a hostile act. Especially when that country is a member of NATO.

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While the biggest story in the political world right now is the manhunt underway for the Utah assassin, there doesn't seem to be much more to say about it yet, so I decided instead to highlight two other stories today, on two of this week's developments in Congress. It's not exactly a "three-dot Thursday" column, since it only has two completely unrelated stories, but it's at least something else to pay attention to as we all wait for developments from Utah.

Epstein files discharge petition only needs one more signature

This is somewhat of a curveball. Last week, Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie introduced a discharge petition which will force the speaker of the House to bring up a bill for a floor vote that he really doesn't want to. The bill would force the Justice Department -- with a hard 30-day deadline -- to release all the remaining Epstein files (with victims' names redacted, of course).

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A horrific act of political violence happened in Utah today. The leader of a group of young conservatives was assassinated, apparently for his political viewpoint. I say "apparently" since (as of this writing) the shooter is still at large, so for the time being all we are left with is assumptions as to motive.

For once, the condemnation of this political violence has been admirably universal. Politicians on the left and the right, Democrats and Republicans, are all denouncing the shooting in equally strong terms. Which they should, of course. It shouldn't matter the ideology of a perpetrator of political violence when issuing such condemnations.

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Due to me being busy all day running errands, there will be no new column today. I apologize for the interruption in service (but at least I got a few "real life" things done here...). Regular columns will reappear starting tomorrow. And again, sorry for playing hooky today.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

You may not have noticed it, what with all the other distractions in Washington, but we're fast approaching the possibility of another government shutdown. The federal fiscal year begins in October, and there is no budget in place yet. The two parties in Congress aren't even talking to each other yet about what to do about it, and they don't have a whole lot of time to get something passed. For Democrats, the question is whether they should shut the government down in what essentially would be an act of political protest, or whether they should just bargain for a few of their issues and accept pretty much everything else Republicans want to do.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer holds the cards in this game, since the Senate has to pass a bill that can be filibustered. So the Republicans will need at least seven Democrats to vote for it. Schumer has already faced this dilemma before, and he came down on the side of keeping the government open. It is unclear what he's planning to do this time.

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Donald Trump is driving the American economy straight into a ditch. That's a pretty simple concept, and it's (just barely) short enough to fit on a bumpersticker. Which makes it a dandy political slogan for Democrats to start hammering out relentlessly.

Doing so is pretty easy, since you can connect all sorts of dots to it: A soft jobs market. Inflation rising. Hamburger prices up. Electricity prices way up. Trump's tariff war, which has created a "Trump tax" on a whole bunch of products. Trump took hold of an economy that had achieved a "soft landing," and now he's driving us all right into a ditch. Everything he does seems to make things worse. See how easy that is to do?

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Will Democrats ever pull back from examining the individual political trees and grasp the nature of the whole forest before them? I wonder this because I see time after time the Democratic Party being shown exactly how they can win elections -- and then time after time they just flat-out ignore it. Or downplay it. Or attempt to come up with a solution that doesn't address the core problem but instead merely tinkers around the edges of it. Or bury it in wonk-speak. I have to admit, it is frustrating to watch.

The answer to Democratic woes is pretty obvious. If they would only fully embrace economic populism, they could revitalize the party, entice disaffected voters back, and not only fight back against Donald Trump and Trumpism, but also strongly stand for a solution (instead of just repeating the refrain of: "Trump is bad.... mmm'kay?").

The general public has one overriding concern that they see politicians in both parties refusing to solve in any meaningful way. It can be simply stated: everything costs too damn much. The economy is rigged so that the billionaires and the giant corporations always get richer, while the rest of us pay higher and higher prices for just about everything. This is the overriding concern of the vast majority of the American public, in fact, and outpaces just about every other political issue there is, including immigration, crime, foreign policy, and all the culture war bugaboos. Because everything costing too damn much hits everybody, all the time.

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Congress is back in town, and so is the pressure to release the Epstein files. Immediately after the House of Representatives convened, Representatives Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna filed their discharge petition, which could soon force the speaker to hold a floor vote on their measure to force the Justice Department to release all its files on Jeffery Epstein.

A discharge petition is a way for a majority of the House to force a vote on a measure over the objections of its speaker, which means in practical terms it must get 218 signatures (a majority of 435) from House members within a week of being filed. All Democrats are expected to sign the petition, and so far Massie has three other Republicans on board as well (Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Nancy Mace). Massie needs two more Republicans to get across that 218 threshold. He is trying to encourage his fellow party members to join him, but the White House is reportedly pushing back on any who have indicated any interest in doing so. From a press conference today, Massie lamented: "The message is that there's 200 Republicans who could do something to protect, to get justice for the victims and survivors, and I only need two of 200, and none of them are stepping up to the plate." There were a few other GOP House members in the audience at this press conference, but none of them would publicly commit to supporting the discharge petition -- at least not yet. At least two gave rather non-committal answers when asked by reporters what they were going to do, though.

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