ChrisWeigant.com

Wildly Unprofessional? Really?

[ Posted Monday, March 18th, 2024 – 16:59 UTC ]

I admit, right up front, that I almost took today off. Seeing as how it is the day after St. Patrick's Day, I felt some temptation to "call in sick" as it were. Or I could have just written a very lazy column comparing Donald Trump's recent incendiary language on the campaign trail to the lyrics of two songs from Pink Floyd's album The Wall (which has quite a bit to say on the subject of the rise of fascism in a democracy): "Waiting For The Worms," and "Run Like Hell." Feel free to click on those links to read the lyrics, if you'd like to see how easy a comparison that would have been.

But instead I am going to write a different very lazy column on a subject that has always peeved me no end: the insanely-generous vacation schedules for members of Congress. Here is the quote that set me off today, from a blurb of an article about the ongoing discussions in Congress to prevent a government shutdown this Friday night:

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Friday Talking Points -- R.N.C. Purge

[ Posted Friday, March 15th, 2024 – 17:29 UTC ]

This week President Joe Biden and Donald Trump both secured their respective parties' 2024 presidential nominations. Most Americans, if the pollsters can be believed (and they do all seem to be telling the same story), are not exactly thrilled with this rematch and would have preferred different choices. But we are where we are, so that's not going to happen for another four years.

Trump moved quickly to consolidate his power by installing loyal toadies (including his daughter-in-law Lara) at the head of the Republican National Committee. An already-existing exodus of people working for the R.N.C. then accelerated, as 60 staffers were shown the door. The R.N.C. is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Trump campaign, in other words.

The new ever-more-Trumpy R.N.C. stumbled out of the gate, as it was first revealed that they were shutting down their minority-outreach offices, but then had to backtrack and say that they weren't going to do that. But the message was pretty clear. Lara Trump has publicly stated that "every dollar" the R.N.C. controls is now going to go to one sole purpose: electing Trump.

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Judge-Shopping Could Get Harder Soon

[ Posted Thursday, March 14th, 2024 – 16:15 UTC ]

There is an effort underway to reform the federal judiciary in one particular aspect -- but it will not completely end the practice which spurred the reform, and already Republicans in Congress are pushing back by declaring that new laws must be passed instead of just a new rule from the judiciary. This isn't too surprising, since conservatives have had much better luck using the tactic to achieve the outcomes they desire in federal courts.

The practice is known as: "forum-shopping," or even more colloquially: "judge-shopping." If an organization wants to attack a law or policy in an attempt to get it declared unconstitutional and overturned, they seek out a plaintiff who happens to live in a judicial division that all but guarantees they'll get a very friendly federal judge to hear their case. This can lead to injunctions being handed down that affect not only the people in that district, but in the entire state or even the entire country. Rather than taking their chances with some random judge, one is pre-selected before filing the suit -- a judge who can be counted on to rule for their side.

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Ken Buck Changes The Equation

[ Posted Wednesday, March 13th, 2024 – 15:57 UTC ]

In a surprise move yesterday, Representative Ken Buck announced that he will not be stepping down from his seat at the end of his current term (as he had previously announced), but instead will step down next week. By doing so, Buck has roiled the waters of the Republican House majority and his surprise move also may tend to quash Representative Lauren Boebert's hopes of remaining in the House after November.

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The End Of Primary Season

[ Posted Tuesday, March 12th, 2024 – 15:15 UTC ]

Tonight will be the (unofficial) end of the presidential primary season. If everything goes as expected (and it will), both President Joe Biden and Donald Trump will secure the necessary majorities of delegates to their respective parties' national conventions, and will thus start to be described in the media as "the designated nominee" (or other similar words which convey both the unofficial nature of the milestone as well as the de facto end to the primary races). Neither man will officially become their parties' nominees until the conventions themselves, but nothing that happens between tonight and then is going to matter -- they'll already both have won.

There are primaries happening today for both major political parties in Georgia, Mississippi, and Washington. Republicans in Hawai'i and Democrats in the Northern Mariana Islands will also be voting. The combination of delegates up for grabs is more than both candidates need to cross the threshold of having won a majority of convention delegates, which will make this the real end of the road for primary season.

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Biden Releases Budget Wish List

[ Posted Monday, March 11th, 2024 – 15:23 UTC ]

President Joe Biden's White House released their budget proposal document today, which only serves as a nagging reminder that Congress still hasn't finished last year's budget process and still needs to pass roughly 70 percent of the current year's budget -- a task they were supposed to accomplish last September. They've let it slip so long that the process is now lapping itself, in other words. Biden's new proposal is for the budget that is theoretically supposed to be in place by this October (but will almost certainly be delayed at least until after the election).

Previous (and future) procrastination aside, however, the presidential budget request is no more than a wish list, really. Even when one party has the trifecta of controlling both houses of Congress and the White House, presidential budgets are still considered mere wishful thinking by Congress, who always just goes ahead and puts their own budget together. Presidential budget requests aren't exactly "dead on arrival" in Congress, but they are never passed without any changes -- they are always rewritten to some degree or another.

Currently, of course, Democrats only control the White House and the Senate. The House is in Republican hands, meaning even if the Senate did go along with Biden's framework it would still never emerge intact from the House. But presidential budgets do lay out the agenda and priorities for a president and his party, so it is interesting to see what Biden wants to do next -- even though "next" should really be read as: "in my second term, if I win," more than: "in the next budget Congress passes."

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Biden Knocks It Out Of The Park

[ Posted Friday, March 8th, 2024 – 17:48 UTC ]

[To begin with, I'd like to apologize to everyone for this not being a "Friday Talking Points" column, but with the "State Of The Union" speech last night there wasn't time to both write a review of it and put together a weekly wrap-up column, so I chose to focus on the speech. "Friday Talking Points" will return next week as usual, never fear.]

President Joe Biden gave his third "State Of The Union" speech last night to a joint session of Congress, and he more than exceeded expectations, in multiple ways. Ol' Joe had a very good night, to put it another way.

Heading into last night's speech there was a lot of what the political world has charmingly decided to call "bedwetting" on the Democratic side. Worries about Biden abounded, as the general election season got underway incredibly early this year. This overlapped with Biden's annual address happening very late on the calendar (January is much more usual), so it was a rare conjunction of events. But as things turned out, it all worked to Biden's advantage. Just when all the Americans who don't pay close attention to politics (which is an enormous majority of them, it is always good to remember) were being faced with the unavoidable fact that the 2024 presidential election is going to be a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, we got a night devoted to the Democrat who is currently president. I have no idea what the viewership numbers will be from last night, but I would bet that more people tuned in than would have if the speech had been given six weeks ago.

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Watching For Style Over Substance

[ Posted Thursday, March 7th, 2024 – 16:10 UTC ]

As he delivers his "State Of The Union" speech tonight, President Joe Biden is going to be judged a whole lot more on the style of his delivery than on the substance of what he says. That's what the pundits are going to be looking for and it'll likely be the storyline afterwards. The average citizen watching is probably going to be more interested in both what is said and how it is said, but the "how" part of that is going to get a lot more headlines the next day. This could either turn into an opportunity for Biden or it could be a giant risk, but it will be at the center of the coverage, that much seems certain.

Will the vibe of Biden's speech delivery be strong and decisive, or will it be more of an "old-man vibe"? Biden is generally not known for his stirring oration, but on some occasions he has indeed given very powerful and forceful speeches. He is fully capable of doing so, in other words, but he doesn't always deliver at the same emotional level. He can be boring and mumbly at times, to put this in a less-polite way. But he can also be quite combative and energetic at other times. What mix of these will we see tonight?

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Whither Go The Haley Voters?

[ Posted Wednesday, March 6th, 2024 – 18:15 UTC ]

It may be impossible to tease out of the exit-polling data in November, but Nikki Haley's voters may be the key to the whole presidential election. Haley bowed out of the race this morning while refusing to endorse Donald Trump, and her voters are very much up for grabs at this point (if primary election exit polling is any indication). So, to wax poetic: whither go the Haley voters, come November? To Biden? To Trump? To third-party candidates? Or to sit on the couch and refuse to vote? The answer is almost certainly going to be a mix of those options, and it may decide the whole contest.

Nikki Haley showed tenacity by staying in the race even long after it was obvious she had no chance of winning the Republican Party's nomination. She proved the point she set out to make, which was that even with the GOP overwhelmingly for Trump, there still exists a faction within the party that is not interested in seeing him run again and does not (yet) support him.

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Snoozer Tuesday

[ Posted Tuesday, March 5th, 2024 – 15:55 UTC ]

I sit writing this while proudly wearing my "I Voted!" sticker, after doing my civic duty by participating in my state's primary election. Today is the traditional day marking the end of the "early-voting" phase, when the primary season is flung wide open to any state willing to move to the front of the line. California did so a while back, joining over a dozen other "Super Tuesday" states. But while I am more immersed in the political world than most, I find it hard to get even a little excited today. After all, everybody knows what's going to happen and both horseraces were really over before they even began.

Donald Trump is going to become the nominee of the Republican Party and the Democrats are going to nominate President Joe Biden again. This has been plainly obvious for months and months. There have been no surprises and no upsets. The general election cycle has already effectively begun.

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