It's been another day in legislative Limbo, as I continually check for updates on what is going on with the House Republicans. Will they manage to strongarm enough members into voting for the Senate's version of their budget bill, or will Donald Trump miss out on his planned big Independence Day signing ceremony? Stay tuned!

(Sigh.) It's been that sort of day.

So while I could have written my own take on all the backroom arm-twistings that are happening once again, instead I decided that whenever the issue is resolved (which could easily slip into tomorrow) such musings would already be old and stale and not worth reading.

Instead, we're taking an early holiday day and running one of our traditional July columns once again. Because we certainly hope everyone is celebrating Independence Day today, as John Adams predicted lo those many years ago.

Originally published July 2nd, 2012

Happy Second of July, everyone! Happy Independence Day!

Now, you may be thinking: "Has Chris gone bonkers? Why is he jumping the gun, two days early?" The answers to these important queries are: No, Chris has not gone any more bonkers than usual; and, in fact, the rest of you are celebrating a fictitious event on a fictitious anniversary date. So there.

Continue Reading »

Cue the Moby Dick jokes....

Senator Lisa Murkowski was convinced at the last minute to become the deciding vote for the Republican budget by the inclusion of a big tax break for (are you sitting down?) whaling captains. No, really -- whaling captains. As I said, the jokes really just write themselves on this one. Democrats instantly came up with two catchy names for all the Alaska-specific pork Murkowski extracted from her fellow Republicans: the Kodiak Kickback, or the Polar Payoff.

Immediately after her vote, Murkowski cried some crocodile tears both for herself and for the Americans who don't happen to live in Alaska, while desperately trying to justify her vote to reporters. She bemoaned how hard the past few days have been for her, and what an "agonizing" ordeal it was for her to get to the point where she could vote to kick 12 million people off of Medicaid.

Continue Reading »

In Washington, all eyes are on the Senate today. They are currently going through the procedure known as "vote-a-rama" (which is right up there with the "Byrd bath" when it comes to cutesy-poo terms for legislative activity). The vote-a-rama is taking place on the Republican budget bill (which is not cutesy at all, because it is filled with poo).

Democrats are pretty united in their opposition to the entire budget. Two Republicans have indicated they will also be a "No" vote (Thom Tillis and Rand Paul), which means the bill can only lose one more GOP vote and still pass (with the vice president's tie-breaking vote).

My prediction is that it will pass today, and that even if Lisa Murkowski decides to vote against it, Susan Collins will (as usual) cave to the intraparty pressure and vote for it. That would all be about par for the course, really.

Continue Reading »

It's not exactly front-and-center in the news, but Republicans have entered a budgetary crunch time in a big way. The outcome is going to be extremely significant to hundreds of millions of Americans, but reporting on it is time-consuming and detail-oriented, so it's a lot easier to just chase whatever shiny object Donald Trump trots out for the press instead.

But perhaps we're being too harsh. After all, the process itself is a maddening one for all concerned. Threats of "No" votes are issued, backroom deals are made, things get ruled out of bounds, hasty rewriting takes place, more threats are issued, more arm-twisting happens behind closed doors, and eventually something gets cobbled together that no one person has the time to read all the way through before it is voted on. The bill is dragged over the finish line and then the whole process happens all over again in the other house of Congress, until everyone is exhausted and just votes for whatever the heck is currently in the bill and they send it along to the president. It's only after the dust settles that anyone bothers to really dig in to the text and report on what it will all mean to America. This process happens pretty much the same way no matter which party is in control, it is worth pointing out.

Continue Reading »

There will be no new column today, sorry. The demands of life away from the keyboard intervened, so I had to spend the day running various errands that had been backing up on me. My apologies for the interruption in service, but we will be back again tomorrow for our Friday column, never fear!

Oh, which reminds me -- next Friday will also be a vacation day here, as the nation celebrates its 249th birthday on July 4th.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

A political earthquake just happened in New York City last night. Zohran Mamdani seems to have won the Democratic primary in the mayoral election, defeating former governor Andrew Cuomo. The results won't be final for another week, and the margin of victory will change (since the voting was by ranked-choice ballot), but last night Cuomo conceded defeat. This morning, there is plenty of buzz about what this all means to the bigger Democratic Party picture, but while it was a stunning upset for New York City it may not be a harbinger of much of anything in the rest of the country. I say this because the circumstances were so unique, and because New York City is not the rest of America.

Continue Reading »

After another 24 hours of rapidly-unfolding developments, we thought it was worth taking another look at where things stand. Donald Trump announced a ceasefire agreement yesterday between Iran and Israel, and after a shaky start (with both sides accusing the other of breaking the ceasefire) it seems to be holding for now. It also seems that Iran will not retaliate further against the United States, after a rather pro forma attack on a U.S. base in Qatar. And today, details leaked of an intelligence assessment that shows the result of the American attack on Iran's nuclear program may not have been "obliteration" (as Trump and others have claimed), but rather just "set back by months."

Taken as a whole, the news is largely good. Trump's gamble -- that Iran wouldn't opt for massive retaliation against the U.S. -- seems to have paid off. Of course, it is still rather early to completely relax, as Iran still has a number of ways it could retaliate in the future (cyberattacks, assassination attempts, terrorist attacks), but the Iranian regime is in an awfully weak position overall. Their leaders want (above all else) to retain their own domestic power to continue their theocratic (and autocratic) rule over the country, and this sense of self-preservation seems to be what is driving them to the negotiating table.

Continue Reading »

We stand at a turning point, but as is common at such a juncture, nobody knows exactly what is going to come next. By bombing Iran's nuclear facilities, the United States is now at war, but what that will mean going forward is really anyone's guess right now.

So far, the consequences have been muted. [Editorial note: We are purposely avoiding using the word "fallout" here, because in the context of bombing a nuclear facility that word has to be reserved for its original literal meaning.] Iran launched a counterattack today, but on such a small scale that it didn't do any damage. Is this the opening shot in a larger campaign, or is it a face-saving ploy by the Iranian regime designed mostly for the benefit of their own citizens (to show that they're "fighting back")? They're in the midst of a larger war with Israel right now, but U.S. military targets are a lot closer to their shores than Israel -- meaning they can use short- and medium-range missiles that can't reach Israeli soil to attack us. Militarily, the United States is a distraction for Iran's war with Israel, but that doesn't mean they will back down.

Continue Reading »

Maybe Donald Trump missed his calling in life. Maybe he secretly dreams of running a car dealership lot. Previously, he turned the White House lawn into a showroom for Teslas (as he showed his tenuous grasp of the English language, saying: "It's all computer!"). Now he has erected two very tall flagpoles on the White House grounds, complete with the sort of giant flag one usually sees from a highway to signify an auto dealership. Which means our title this week pretty much had to be based on the maxim: "Let's run it up the flagpole and see who salutes!"

We're not even going to get into the idiocy and priapic monomania Trump displayed in gushing about his new poles (which was pretty laughable, but we felt the late-night comedians are already doing a stellar job of mocking Trump's flagpole-stroking monologue), because this was a serious week.

Continue Reading »

Next month, America will celebrate its 249th birthday on July 4th. But the rest of the world will be much more concerned with what happens five days later, on July 9th. That is the deadline for Donald Trump's 90-day "pause" in what he calls his "reciprocal tariffs" on the rest of the world. Either countries have a new trade deal in place with the U.S. by that date, or else steep tariffs will once again be imposed upon them.

This pause period came about because Trump backed down almost immediately after his big "Liberation Day" announcement, when the bond markets got (as Trump put it) "yippy" in response. His administration promised "90 deals in 90 days" and has been full of happy talk about how every country in the world is absolutely begging to cut a deal with Trump before the deadline is reached. Here's a typical quote from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick: "You're going to see deal after deal, they're going to start coming next week and the week after and the week after. We've got them in the hopper." Except that week after week then goes by and... nothing is announced at all.

To date, the United States has cut precisely zero fully-fledged trade deals with other countries. One country -- the United Kingdom -- has agreed to a framework for a deal, and that's it. And that 90-day calendar now has less than three weeks to run.

Continue Reading »