[Editorial Note: Already, one month in, I am finding quiet joy in sitting down to write an article and having to think about it. And not in the previous "there are just so many outrageous and scandalous stories from the White House in the past 24 hours that it is hard to choose among them all" sort of way. I mean, glancing casually at the headlines I see that Ted Cruz apparently took a vacation on Mars... although I could easily have mixed that up somehow, I will fully admit. But seriously, I find that I can choose to just not write about Ted Cruz today, because there are other subjects much more worthy of commenting upon. And that's a good feeling, I have to admit.]

President Joe Biden has had his ups and downs in his first month in office. His biggest down to date has been his propensity to telegraph much too early that he knows his bargaining position isn't going to carry the day -- before the bargaining is even really close to being over. He's done this on the push for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, and now he's doing it on the immigration bill just proposed, by hinting that it might have to pass in several pieces instead of a comprehensive bill. Signaling what he'll ultimately accept too early undercuts Democrats fighting for the strongest bill possible, so this could be the start of a worrisome trend. However, Biden did hold rock-steady on the size of his COVID-19 relief bill, even in the face of faux bipartisanship, where Republicans offered an opening bid of less than one-third of what Biden wanted (proving it was really nothing more than the old "stall and obstruct" Republican tactics, in "bipartisan" clothing). So we'll have to wait to see which tendency becomes more prevalent in Biden, over the next few months.

But on the up side, Biden has already accomplished one brilliant political bit of jiu-jitsu. He has totally redefined "bipartisanship" in a way that bodes well for many progressive agenda items in the near future. This move was absolutely brilliant, even though few have realized it yet.

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Donald Trump changed a lot of things in American politics, including one that's likely to be around for some time to come -- normalizing the practice of a politician not using any "code words" or "dog whistles," but instead just boldly telling you what he really feels. The unvarnished truth, as he sees it, in other words. Why pussyfoot around? Just tell it like it is, and anyone who complains is obviously some sort of liberal weenie, so you can ignore all of them and their complaints as being too "woke," or something.

Thankfully, politicians not named "Donald Trump" still occasionally pay the price for such forthright public admissions. Exhibit A, today, is the former mayor of Colorado City, Texas. And I think his words truly need no introduction because they are pretty self-explanatory. In a now-deleted Facebook post, Mayor Tim Boyd wrote (in response to the ongoing winter disaster in his city):

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I had a choice of topics for today's column, one of which was weighing in on the debate over the possibility of earmarks returning to Congress. I say this to make a point -- American politics may not be back to normal by a long shot (since the Republican Party obviously hasn't quite returned from their Looney Tunes vacation yet), but in his four weeks in office, President Joe Biden has moved us all a significant way down the road to normalcy once again.

It is already being said that Sunday was the first day of Biden's presidency, because it was the first time Donald Trump truly does not belong in the news headlines any more. His second impeachment trial is over, so now anything he says or does will be -- at worst -- a secondary distraction. Or it should be, at any rate. Trump is excellent at tossing shiny, shiny objects to the news media just to create a feeding frenzy, so we'll have to see what happens when he (inevitably) breaks his self-imposed silence and starts giving interviews once again.

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[Program Note: After following the impeachment trial all last week -- including a rare Saturday column -- I am punting for today's holiday and am just going to present a repeat column instead. Happy holiday Monday, everyone, and I'll see you back here tomorrow for a new column.]

Originally published February 17, 2014

Happy Presidents' Day to all!

Well, to all who live in Hawai'i, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Vermont, at the very least. These are the states which officially recognize today as "Presidents' Day." Unlike other federal holidays, however, there is much disagreement and controversy surrounding the holiday. Not so much the holiday itself, but over what to call it (and when to celebrate it). In states such as California and Alaska (and, notably, the state of Washington), the apostrophe moves and it is known as "President's Day." This can be read as either snubbing all the other presidents (since the holiday originally celebrated one president's birthday), or celebrating the presidency itself (or the day of the president, to put it another way). But even without such grammatical gymnastics, the day has plenty of other official titles. Some states such as Michigan and New Jersey dispense with the apostrophe altogether and just call it "Presidents Day." Some states get flowery ("Recognition of the birthday of George Washington" in North Dakota), and some get inclusive ("Lincoln's and Washington's Birthday" in Montana, "Lincoln/Washington/Presidents' Day" in Arizona, and "Washington and Lincoln Day" in Utah), and some even throw in a local personage to the mix ("George Washington's Birthday and Daisy Gatson Bates Day" in Arkansas). Wikipedia lists ten separate official state titles for the holiday, in fact.

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Donald Trump's second impeachment trial came to an end today. This was fully expected, however the beginning of the day contained some serious uncertainties about how long the trial would go on for. Once that was settled, however, things moved towards the inevitable conclusion.

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On this date in history, ten-score-and-twelve years ago, Abraham Lincoln was born. Also on this date, 22 years ago, the Senate voted to acquit Bill Clinton of the charges made against him in only the second impeachment trial in American history. Today, this year, saw the fourth day of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial in the Senate. Today was the day the legal team for Donald Trump got to present their defense.

They were allotted 16 hours to do so. The prosecution took more than nine hours to make their case, but the defense took less than three to make theirs. Most of their case was clearly presented for an audience of one -- former president Donald Trump (or, as they insisted on calling him, "the 45th president") -- since they aren't going to have to work too hard to get the votes they need (which is what everyone, including them, is assuming). So they were free to structure much of their defense to keep Trump happy -- including even, at the end, a blatant attempt to defend Trump's Big Lie (which nobody really expected them to touch on).

After the defense rested, the Senate (much to my dismay... I thought I was done for the day very early on...) opened the question period, where all the senators are able to ask questions of both legal teams and get five-minute answers in response.

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On the third day of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, the prosecution rested. Having made a very strong and climactic case yesterday, today the House managers finished up their presentation and ended with their closing argument, part of which was a pre-buttal to the expected arguments from the defense.

The defense is expected to only take one day to make their case, meaning both sides will have been heard at the end of the day tomorrow. The lawyer on Trump's team has reportedly withdrawn his objection to working on the Sabbath, therefore the entire trial could even be over on Saturday.

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The second day of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial was dedicated to the opening of the prosecution's case against him. The House managers have a full 16 hours to present their case, but it remains to be seen how much of that they'll actually use. When I began writing this (during their dinner break), they had already been at it for five and a half hours, and they didn't adjourn for the day -- but then later they only used a limited amount of time afterwards (the total came in under the full eight hours allotted for the day, in other words).

By my count, eight House managers made presentations today: Representatives Jamie Raskin, Joe Neguse, and David Cicilline from yesterday, in addition to Representatives Joaquin Castro, Eric Swalwell, Madeleine Dean, and Ted Lieu, as well as Delegate Stacey Plaskett, who represents the territory of the U.S. Virgin Islands. It was obvious why Raskin chose her to be a manager, since she not only was his student at one point, but so far she has been the most effective speaker of the day.

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The second impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump began today in the United States Senate. Today was largely a procedural day, which began with an initial vote to adopt the impeachment rules that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell worked out yesterday. This was followed by an extended argument from both the House impeachment managers and Trump's lawyers about whether even holding this trial was constitutional or not. At the end, the Senate voted to affirm that the trial is indeed constitutional, by a vote of 56 to 44. The trial then adjourned until noon tomorrow.

Before I get to my impressions about the presentations made, a word about that vote tally. The Senate has already essentially voted on this question, but this was the official vote within the confines of the actual impeachment trial. However, the previous vote was only 55-45. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana seems to have changed his mind, which came as a total surprise (since he's not exactly seen as a never-Trumper or any kind of moderate).

Cassidy explained his vote by saying: "If anyone disagrees with my vote and would like an explanation, I ask them to listen to the arguments presented by the House managers and former President Trump's lawyers. The House managers had much stronger constitutional arguments. The president's team did not." He added: "President Trump's team was disorganized.... If I'm an impartial juror and one side is doing a great job and the other side is doing a terrible job on the issue at hand, I'm going to vote for the side that did the good job."

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For only the fourth time in American history (and for the second time in approximately one year), the Senate will convene an impeachment trial tomorrow, to consider the charges against Donald Trump. Even at this late date, however, there are many unanswered questions about what exactly is going to take place this week, so I thought I'd review where things stand as of now (some of these issues may actually be resolved by the time I write, edit, format, and post this article, I should mention in advance).

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have still not agreed upon the basic framework for the trial. McConnell is often likened to a turtle for the way he looks, but he really deserves the comparison for his ability to slow everything down to a crawl. So even with fewer than 24 hours until the trial starts, there is still no formal agreement on how it will proceed.

What is expected is that the trial will take place in the afternoons. I've heard it will start at 1:00 P.M. every day (Eastern Time), but even that could still change. At least portions of the trial will be televised on many cable news channels. On broadcast television, my guess is that PBS will cover the whole thing gavel-to-gavel every day, while the other networks may only partially air it. But that's just a guess -- we'll have to wait and see.

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