ChrisWeigant.com

Archive of Articles in the "The Constitution" Category

Friday Talking Points -- Mueller Speaks, But Not Quite Clearly Enough

[ Posted Friday, May 31st, 2019 – 18:03 UTC ]

Robert Mueller broke his two-year silence this week, as he strode boldly to the podium and loudly announced: "ITMFA!" and then withdrew. 'This caused the term to spike in Google searches to a level never seen before on any subject, ever.

Well, no. That's not what happened. Many now think that's what should have happened, but unfortunately it did not.

Read Complete Article »

Friday Talking Points -- Trump Throws Another Tantrum

[ Posted Friday, May 24th, 2019 – 17:29 UTC ]

What do you do with a president who wants to be impeached? That's a surreal question, but then again we live in surreal times. Donald Trump seems more and more like a man begging the House Democrats to impeach him. It's like every political decision he makes is designed to be so outrageous that it'll surely goad Democrats into starting an impeachment committee.

Read Complete Article »

Trump's Legal Stalling May Backfire On Him

[ Posted Tuesday, May 21st, 2019 – 16:29 UTC ]

President Donald Trump is stonewalling Congress. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is not convinced that the time has yet come to open impeachment hearings. If this dynamic doesn't change, then the battles over access to Trump, Trump's advisors, and Trump's business records (including his taxes) will likely play out in the federal courts. Trump is convinced that this is either a winning strategy for him, or at the very least a way to stall the entire fight until after next year's election. If either of those are true, he will avoid any negative consequences for his actions at least until he knows whether he's going to get a second term or not. But he may have miscalculated, because his "big stall" tactic may just backfire on him in a big way.

Read Complete Article »

Friday Talking Points -- Trump's Immigration Hypocrisy

[ Posted Friday, May 17th, 2019 – 17:23 UTC ]

It's been yet another week of life so bizarre it'd be hard to even imagine it as satirical art. Who would best be able to capture the lunacy and doublethink emanating from Trump's White House? Joseph Heller? George Orwell? Douglas Adams? Or perhaps Dr. Seuss? In other words, just another glorious week in Trumpland, folks.

Read Complete Article »

What Will Happen If Trump Ignores The Courts?

[ Posted Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 – 17:03 UTC ]

What does "co-equal" really mean? That is a basic constitutional question that has never adequately been answered. We are supposed to have three co-equal branches of government in the United States, the legislative (Congress), the executive (the president and all executive branches), and the judicial (the Supreme Court and all other federal courts). Theoretically, none are supposed to be held above the other, hence the co-equal designation. But what does that really mean?

Read Complete Article »

Friday Talking Points -- Male Chauvinist Pig Withdraws Bid For Fed Seat

[ Posted Friday, May 3rd, 2019 – 17:54 UTC ]

Those are strong words to use in a subtitle, as well as so dated as to almost be anachronistic. But we feel this is the perfect phrase to sum up Stephen Moore's announcement that he's withdrawing from consideration for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Because apparently Moore has been in a coma since just before Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in a tennis match billed as the "Battle Of The Sexes."

Read Complete Article »

Democrats Should Draft Some Presidential Ethics Bills

[ Posted Wednesday, May 1st, 2019 – 17:16 UTC ]

Congressional Democrats, especially those in the House (where they enjoy a majority, and can thus get things done), should counter a recent Trumpian dodge by taking up his challenge and drafting some very specific bills dealing with presidential and campaign ethics. Not only will this head the false GOP talking point off at the pass, it will also add to the developing Democratic platform for the 2020 elections (both presidential and congressional). A win-win situation, in other words.

Read Complete Article »

Should Prisoners Be Allowed To Vote?

[ Posted Wednesday, April 24th, 2019 – 16:51 UTC ]

Monday night, Bernie Sanders appeared on a CNN town hall, and was asked a rather unusual question. An audience member asked whether Bernie supported enfranchising prisoners such as the Boston Marathon bomber or people convicted of sexual assault. Bernie's answer was surprising to many, because he spoke not only in favor of incarcerated prisoners voting, but cut to the heart of the matter: to Bernie, it's a question of basic rights.

Read Complete Article »

Trump Begins To Push Back

[ Posted Tuesday, April 23rd, 2019 – 17:04 UTC ]

The use of the word "begins" in that headline might be a bit puzzling, since President Donald Trump has pushed back on any number of things during the course of his presidency, most often on Twitter. But today we're not talking about exchanging schoolyard insults with his political opponents, but actual legal pushback from the executive department. Which is somewhat new, and can be expected to grow over the coming months.

Read Complete Article »

Friday Talking Points -- The Mueller Report's Aftermath

[ Posted Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 17:41 UTC ]

Yesterday, Robert Mueller's investigative report on Donald Trump was made (mostly) public. Today, Trump and his cheerleaders are insisting that he has been totally vindicated and exonerated, while some Democratic candidates for president are demanding that impeachment proceedings be launched in the House of Representatives. That's a pretty wide gulf in perception, but at this point it was to be expected.

Read Complete Article »