We're barely through the first month of 2019 and the 2020 presidential race is already heating up. The biggest news this week came from the flirtation of former Starbucks C.E.O. Howard Schultz with an independent run. This has caused much consternation on the left, because most Democrats see a Schultz independent bid as nothing short of a spoiler effort which may put Donald Trump back in the White House for another four years. Personally, I'm not so sure the electoral equation would be that simple, though.

Schultz, apparently not knowing the history of the term, says he is counting on a "silent majority" to propel him to victory. As with Roger Stone's recent "V-for-victory" pose in front of a courthouse, one has to wonder whether Richard Nixon is really the best person to be borrowing political imagery from these days (or "ever," for that matter). Schultz is reasoning that there are so many independent voters out there that they'll all flock to him and he'll split the two major parties down the middle. This is quite likely a fantasy, of course, since the Electoral College is what determines presidential elections, not the outcome of the popular vote.

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Denial, as the punny saying goes, is not just a river in Egypt. President Donald Trump seems to still be floating down De Nile, however, oblivious to the world of reality around him. This isn't exactly a crisis yet, but it certainly will become a lot more noticeable as time goes by.

In 2010, Barack Obama sheepishly admitted -- in person, while giving a press conference (those were the days, eh?) -- that he had gotten "shellacked" in the midterm elections. Previous to that, George W. Bush admitted to a similar midterm "thumping." Donald Trump experienced the same phenomenon -- losing more House seats to Democrats than had happened since the days of Watergate -- and he proclaimed it was a great victory for him because he had managed to pick up two Senate seats (the only bright spot in an election full of bad news for Republicans nationwide). Great pyramids seemingly floated by in a haze in the background.

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President Donald Trump's government shutdown became only the second-biggest media story this morning, after the news broke of an early-morning raid that wound up with the arrest of Roger Stone on charges of obstruction and witness-tampering. Bob Mueller's investigation just caught another witch, in other words. Trump, of course, can't stand to see (1) news about Mueller, and (2) any television news story that isn't all about him, so he immediately decided to make even bigger news, by caving completely on the shutdown and handing Nancy Pelosi exactly what she's been demanding all along.

You have to hand it to him, because Trump's ploy worked. It guaranteed that the number one news story today was not about Mueller, but rather about Trump's abject failure to get anything at all from his 35-day government-shutdown temper tantrum. Pelosi won. Trump lost. It's impossible to spin it any other way. We have not yet heard the reaction from the right-wing news media (Ann Coulter, we're looking in your direction...), but it is sure to be entertaining.

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A scant few months ago, the topic du jour at the Washington cocktail parties was whether Nancy Pelosi would even become the next speaker of the House. Maybe a revolt-from-within would take her down. She was seen as (pick one): too old, too weak to fight Trump effectively, too centrist, or too squishy when the going got tough. These arguments now seem laughable, but an outsized amount of attention was paid to them in the punditocracy, and not all that long ago. Is anyone now still wondering whether Pelosi can effectively take on Trump, or whether her age precludes her from being an effective Democratic leader?

Pelosi just won a symbolic victory over the president, after Trump backed down last night and agreed to Pelosi's demand that the State Of The Union speech be postponed until after the government has reopened. Trump caved, to put it plainly, and Pelosi emerged victorious. This was a small victory, to be sure (it is of little comfort to the 800,000-plus who still aren't being paid), but it was a clear victory nonetheless.

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That headline is a little acronym-heavy, so allow me to spell it out: the President Of The United States is locked in a battle of wills with the Speaker Of The House over the State Of The Union speech. How this all ends is anyone's guess, since it is nothing more than a side drama in the grand government-shutdown Kabuki theater we're all now trapped within. So far, it looks like Nancy Pelosi has the upper hand in the standoff, but you never really know what Donald Trump is going to do next, so it's anyone's guess precisely what is going to happen next Tuesday night.

How we got here: early this month, Pelosi sent Trump the traditional (but informal) invitation to speak to a joint session of Congress on January 29. But then the shutdown did not get resolved. So Pelosi sent a letter to Trump suggesting that he either (1) postpone the State Of The Union speech until the government was open once again, or (2) deliver his speech in written form. Trump reacted this week by attempting to bluff his way through, stating that he would be showing up on Tuesday night as if everything were normal. However, to hold a speech in front of a joint session of Congress requires a resolution pass in both houses beforehand, and Pelosi stated she was not going to bring up any such resolution until the government reopened. She clarified this stance in a letter sent to Trump today. Trump subsequently backed down (or at least it seems so at the moment), and said he would give his speech at an "alternative" event, without specifying what that would mean, exactly.

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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.

Many are unaware that the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly guarantee the right to vote. While a full seven out of the 17 amendments ratified since the Bill of Rights do deal with voting rights in one way or another (such as granting the franchise to women and to 18-year-olds), there is no actual phrase or amendment within the Constitution that simply says that every citizen has the right to vote.

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[I ran this speech last year, and when considering what to run this year in celebration of Martin Luther King Junior Day, I thought it was worth another read. Just yesterday morning, Vice President Mike Pence tried (but largely failed) to appropriate King's words into the twisted notion that King would have supported a giant fence at our southern border. Because as we all know, King was never on the side of the oppressed in any way [pause for snarky eye-roll]. Pence's idiocy was (thankfully) shot down almost immediately by others who revealed the full context of the King speech Pence quoted, which was nowhere near the meaning Pence was trying to attach to it. So when I got to the end of the speech below, I was struck by King's references to thinking, whenever he flew, about not just the pilots but also the mostly-unnoticed ground crew. I feel this is pertinent now because it may just turn out to be airports where the final battle to end the current government shutdown is fought -- yesterday, sick-outs at the T.S.A. rose to over 10 percent of the workforce for the first time. Of course, T.S.A. agents didn't even exist in King's time (you could walk on an airplane without being searched or X-rayed, back then), but they may indeed now become the public face of the 800,000 government workers who have now been working for a month without being paid. And King would certainly have understood the collective power of a group of workers walking off the job in protest. Indeed, that's what he was in Memphis to support when he was assassinated. People like Mike Pence never think about this fact, because they're content to just remember a cherry-picked King quote here and there. Which is why, as usual, we're going to provide the entire transcript of a King speech to honor him today.]

-- Chris Weigant

December 10, 1964, Oslo, Norway

I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when twenty-two million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award in behalf of a civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice.

I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeing to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered. And only yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because they offered a sanctuary to those who would not accept segregation.

I am mindful that debilitating and grinding poverty afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder.

Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle; to a movement which has not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize.

After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of that movement is profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time -- the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.

Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.

If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. The tortuous road which has led from Montgomery, Alabama, to Oslo bears witness to this truth. This is a road over which millions of Negroes are traveling to find a new sense of dignity.

This same road has opened for all Americans a new ear of progress and hope. It has led to a new Civil Rights bill, and it will, I am convinced, be widened and lengthened into a superhighway of justice as Negro and white men in increasing numbers create alliances to overcome their common problems.

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him.

I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

I believe that even amid today's motor bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land.

"And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid."

I still believe that we shall overcome.

This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.

Today I come to Oslo as a trustee, inspired and with renewed dedication to humanity. I accept this prize on behalf of all men who love peace and brotherhood. I say I come as a trustee, for in the depths of my heart I am aware that this prize is much more than an honor to me personally.

Every time I take a flight I am always mindful of the man people who make a successful journey possible -- the known pilots and the unknown ground crew.

So you honor the dedicated pilots of our struggle who have sat at the controls as the freedom movement soared into orbit. You honor, once again, Chief Luthuli of South Africa, whose struggles with and for his people, are still met with the most brutal expression of man's inhumanity to man.

You honor the ground crew without whose labor and sacrifices the jet flights to freedom could never have left the earth.

Most of these people will never make the headlines and their names will not appear in Who's Who. Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live -- men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization -- because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness' sake.

I think Alfred Nobel would know what I mean when I say that I accept this award in the spirit of a curator of some precious heirloom which he holds in trust for its true owners -- all those to whom beauty is truth and truth beauty -- and in whose eyes the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.

-- Martin Luther King Jr.

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

The government shutdown hits the one-month milestone this weekend, but there's an even more significant calendar event which will happen as well: Donald Trump hits the halfway point of his term in office. Or, to take into account all the possibilities, we'd have to say "at least the halfway point," since if he doesn't serve his whole term for one reason or another (for, you know, whatever reason...) then he'd have hit his halfway point already, at some point in the past. So please read that headline as a worst-case scenario. We're only halfway through this rollercoaster ride, folks.

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took the time this week to pen an opinion piece in the Washington Post warning of the dire consequences that would happen if the Democratic House's first bill (H.R. 1, or the "For The People Act") ever became law. He calls it the "Democrat [sic] Politician Protection Act." However, he really fails to explain why anything in the act (other than changes to the Federal Election Commission) would specifically help Democrats at the expense of Republicans. Instead, his article reads as nothing short of free-floating angst over the changes Democrats are proposing.

What's really telling is that Mitch felt the need to attack this bill now, when he obviously has other things on his plate to worry about (like reopening the government). That the bill is causing such deep concern in the Republican Party is very good news for Democrats, since the bill itself is such a breathtaking overhaul of elections, ethics rules, and how money influences politics. While not everyone will likely agree on the need for every item contained within it, the chances are that most of it will sound pretty good to most people.

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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is trolling President Donald Trump. She just sent him a letter (which she then immediately released to the public, for maximum impact) suggesting that the upcoming State Of The Union speech be either: postponed until the government is open once again, given from the Oval Office on television, or just written down by the White House and sent over to Congress. This is obviously designed to do nothing short of getting under the president's skin, but at the same time it is indeed a real threat, since Pelosi actually does have the power to deny Trump the chance to give his annual speech. Officially, the speaker invites the president and then somewhat later (often mere days before the speech) the House and Senate pass an official invitation which schedules the event. Pelosi has already informally invited Trump to speak on January 29th, but Congress has not yet officially acted. If Pelosi doesn't allow a floor vote, then the official invitation will never happen and the speech will essentially be cancelled. Such is the power of having the majority in the House.

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