[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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Today, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning racism and white supremacy. They felt the need to do so because one of its members was recently quoted by a journalist pondering how "white supremacy" had become such a negative term. Tomorrow, the House may vote on censuring Representative Steve King directly. His own Republican caucus has stripped him of all his committee assignments as well.

This is all to the good, of course. Even hinting at supporting white supremacy should be absolutely disqualifying for any American politician, in this day and age. But many are left wondering why King was able to get away with his vitriol for so long. He's got a long history of making what can only be called racist statements, after all. In all this time, Republicans never stripped him of his committee assignments or, for that matter, even acknowledged the racism in their own ranks. The current feigned GOP outrage smacks of too little, too late.

Which brings me to a related subject. Because while King's remarks were pretty blatantly racist, he certainly isn't alone in denigrating people who don't happen to look like him. In fact, the leader of his party does so all the time, and President Donald Trump rarely gets any kind of pushback from those in his party for doing so. So why the double standard?

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Today seems to be another day for speculating about the upcoming Democratic presidential primary race, and (more specifically) answering the question: "What do Democratic voters want to see in a 2020 presidential nominee?" Since there is no real news today on the government shutdown front, I thought I'd join in this speculation. My apologies to those who are in the "It's just too damn early to even think about" camp, in advance. If you're one of those, I'd suggest just skipping today's article altogether.

The easiest and best answer to the question, of course, is: "Someone who can beat Donald Trump." That is going to be the overwhelming and deeply-held consensus among Democratic voters this time around. Trump is seen as such a titanic disaster among the Democratic base that they'll be willing to forgive a lot if they feel their candidate has the best chance of defeating Trump, in other words.

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If our president is going crazy over a non-existent "emergency" at our southern border, could it be called "borderline insanity"? We're just asking....

Puns aside, we are now one day away from the longest government shutdown in modern history. And that record will indeed be broken, since Congress has decamped for the weekend and no talks are currently underway. So it'll be at least Monday before anything happens, and probably a whole lot longer.

It's hard to overstate the depths to which Donald Trump has driven America into, with his petulant tantrum over his beloved wall. Consider the following: now even some Democrats are quietly wishing for Trump to declare monarchical powers to resolve a national emergency that simply does not exist. The thinking is that this is the only way Trump has left to declare victory, so the entire country can move on and the Democrats can get the government open for business once again. That's what we're left with -- hoping Trump stomps on the Constitution because it seems to be the only avenue left back to some semblance of sanity. Here's a peek into this thinking from the Washington Post:

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I thought we could all use a break from all the manufactured Trump Shutdown follies today, so instead I am finally giving in and writing the inevitable first (of many) columns on the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race. I've largely restrained myself from doing so up until now, even though I could have started in right after the midterm elections last year. But now a few Democrats are more-officially sticking their toe in the 2020 water, so it seemed like a good time to provide an initial overview.

Such an overview is going to have to be from about 30,000 feet up, though, because at this point that's about how high you have to get to fully view the Democratic field, which is already miles-wide. There are so many Democrats either running, thinking about running, rumored to be running, or declining to run right now that it's hard to even get an accurate count of them all. So we're not going to have much time for candidate-by-candidate analysis, rather just a series of long lists of who currently falls into which category. This field, of course, will narrow (at least somewhat) as time goes on, so we'll have plenty of time later for discussions of "lanes" and frontrunners-versus-underdogs and all the rest of the horserace hoopla, never fear. For now, though, we're just going to provide the initial (very long) list.

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President Donald Trump held a meeting today with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. It was as pointless as the last few meetings between the three, from all accounts. Reportedly, after Pelosi made her case for opening the government but only extending the budget for the Department of Homeland Security for another month -- to give both sides time to have the border wall fight without penalizing all the federal workers -- Trump asked her point-blank whether she would agree to his wall money in 30 days or not. She said "No," and Trump got up and walked out of the meeting. Which is why the word "pointless" is hard to avoid.

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President Trump just got done delivering the first primetime Oval Office speech of his presidency, which was followed by a rebuttal from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. The entire experience was an odd one, mostly for the brevity of both speeches, which were planned to be eight minutes each (I did not time them, but they both seemed to fall in that ballpark). So my snap reactions will likewise be abbreviated, meaning this column won't be anywhere near as long as the ones I write after State Of The Union speeches (for instance).

The usual caveat applies -- all direct quotes were hastily jotted down by me, and I could easily have gotten a word or two wrong or out of place, but I do believe I've captured the essence of what was said. Just to be honest, up front. OK, enough of that, let's get to it.

President Trump's speech reactions

Overall impressions were that Trump kind of rushed through his remarks, although he did stay on script for the entire time (I didn't notice any glaring ad-lib moments, in other words). Normally when reading off a TelePrompTer, Trump is much more singsong and his delivery is full of pauses and odd inflections. Tonight these were mostly absent, but they were replaced with the kind of speedy delivery not usually heard from the president. I'm not sure which style works better for him, but the difference from his usual TelePrompTer pace was indeed noticeable. In appearance, Trump seemed rather squinty-eyed, as if the text on the TelePrompTer wasn't big enough for him to easily read.

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