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We have to begin by first ignoring all the rampant criminality spewing forth from the White House -- just for the moment, mind you -- to concentrate instead on looking forward, not back. Because we're less than two weeks away from the first round of Democratic 2020 presidential primary debates, and the Democratic National Committee just announced the lineup for the two nights.
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.
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.
As I wrote about yesterday, the Democratic 2020 presidential field is getting bigger all the time. With so many viable candidates running, it's getting tougher and tougher for each one of them to stand out in any appreciable way. Most of the attention in the media so far has focused on rather superficial traits about the candidates (this is nothing new, I should mention), but that doesn't mean that substantive policy proposals aren't being put forward. So today I'd like to zero in one on particular candidate who seems to be proposing some of the boldest ideas in the field (at least for now). Because whatever else you may think of her, Elizabeth Warren has certainly staked out a few cutting-edge positions.
President Donald Trump, as we all know, is a big fan of walls. Big, beautiful walls, according to him. But although he's never gotten Mexico to pony up a single peso for his border wall, and is still having trouble convincing Congress that it's the right thing to do, when future historians look back on this week, they might mark it as when Trump began constructing a metaphorical wall between his administration and Congress. Because the first big block of stone was just deposited on the White House lawn -- with 81 more big stone blocks waiting in the wings.
The subject of Israel and American politicians' support for Israel is in the news this week, as the Democratic House votes to condemn anti-Semitism. It is doing so to punish one of its own members for not being sufficiently supportive of Israel, and for complaining about how American politicians' support for Israel has to be unquestioning and absolute.
The mainstream media -- right, left, and center -- are largely missing the point when reporting (and opining) on the recent revelation about Andrew McCabe and Rod Rosenstein talking about the use of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. Because in all the shocking hair-on-fire reaction, few bother to point out that neither man would have had anything to do with removing President Trump with the procedures laid out in the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. The president's cabinet would be initially involved, and then Congress might also have a direct say, but "secondary officials at the Justice Department or the Federal Bureau of Investigation" are simply not on that list.
Democratic presidential hopefuls (both announced and not-yet-announced) are already beginning to define their candidacies in their speeches. The field is going to be so large this time around that they'll all be searching for ways to stand out from the pack. Many basic Democratic agenda items will be very similar from candidate to candidate, making nuanced differences all that separates them. Two of these candidates -- one announced, one not -- took the occasion of Martin Luther King Junior Day yesterday to explicitly call for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote. This is a much more potent political issue than most folks who reside inside the Beltway realize, and it may just become a dealbreaker issue for the presidential field.
Welcome back to the second part of our year-end awards column! For those who may have missed it, check out Part 1 from last week to see the awards we've already handed out.
But since these columns are always not only monstrously but downright scroll-bar-defyingly long, let's just dive right back into the 2018 McLaughlin awards, shall we?
Welcome back once again to our year-end awards column series! Today we'll have part one, and then we'll finish up next Friday with part two. As always, we will be using the (slightly-modified, over time) awards categories first thought up by the incomparable McLaughlin Group television political-chatfest show.