There's a saying among government workers that requires a wee bit of bowdlerization for the first paragraph of a family column: "The eagle poops on Fridays." In other words, government paychecks appear at the end of the week. This week, the eagle is metaphorically constipated, and no such "poop" will be forthcoming to hundreds of thousands of government workers. For many of them, this will be the first missed paycheck, while others have already gone a pay period without being paid. The government shutdown is about to get a lot less theoretical and a lot more worrisome for millions, when you take into account their families and the local businesses they support.

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Program Note: Our apologies, but due to circumstances beyond our control, there will be no Friday Talking Points column this week. We've been dealing with some behind-the-scenes technical problems with the site (and with our network access to our ISP), and so did not have time to put together a Friday column. We realize it's already been two weeks without one (due to the year-end awards columns), so we do apologize for the delay.

What we would have written about this week would have heavily relied upon two themes: how Democrats are easily winning the talking point battle over "the Trump Shutdown" (see how easy that was to do?), and secondly, how breathtakingly expansive the Democrats' first House bill turned out to be. This was covered in great detail (complete with a link to the full text of the bill) by HuffPost, so anyone feeling the loss of this week's FTP column should check that out for what would have been our prime source material today. Although the bill overreaches in a few instances (proposes things which will likely require constitutional amendments, like forcing the Supreme Court to come up with ethics rules for itself, for instance), it is a very ambitious bill with a lot of very excellent reforms built into it and deserves a whole lot more media attention than it is likely to get this week. A third issue that I would have also brought up in passing is the new effort by Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee to introduce two very interesting constitutional amendments: one to prevent presidents from pardoning themselves and one to abolish the Electoral College. This is a very interesting tactic for a Democrat to take, and I would have voiced support for his efforts. Of course, now that a Friday column proved to be impossible today, I will likely write about all of these issues at some point next week.

What follows below is the article I was working on yesterday when the connectivity problems started. I finished it up last night, and thought it would be a good consolation article to run today if I wasn't able to finish a FTP column. So although there won't be a Friday column today, here at least is the Thursday column you should have gotten yesterday.

Nancy Pelosi can now correctly be called Speaker of the House Pelosi once again. It's been eight years since that has been true, most of which the Republicans spent proving their own slogan: "Government doesn't work -- elect us and we'll prove it!" The speakerships of both John Boehner and Paul Ryan never really accomplished all that much, other than one massive tax cut for billionaires and Wall Street. Almost the entire time the GOP was in control, their entire legislative agenda was halted in its tracks not by Democrats, but by their own intransigent Tea Party members. With all of that as prologue, Nancy Pelosi won't have to do much to outperform the two intervening House speakers.

But of course, she's not setting the bar that low. Far from it. Pelosi has big challenges ahead and a large "to do" list to take care of. Fortunately, Democrats are a lot more politically cohesive right now than the Republicans have been for the past eight years. Progressives are just not stupid enough to become "the Tea Party of the left," content only to stop all legislation that doesn't pass their ultra-purity test. Pelosi already has the support of her caucus in a way that neither Boehner nor Ryan ever really could plausibly claim.

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My apologies, but I've been having massive upgrade/router/modem/ISP problems all day today, so there will be no new column. Sad to say, tomorrow's column is also at risk of not appearing. I'll do my best, but at this point can't make any promises....

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Happy new year everyone, and welcome back again to our annual promotion of Lake Superior State University's annual "Banished Words List." That's right, it's time to head once again to the now-frigid shores of Gitche Gumee to see what their word mavens have optimistically banished from use, in the hopes of keeping all our conversations less lazy (and annoying). So without further ado, let's just get right to this year's list:

Wheelhouse

In The Books

Wrap My Head Around

Platform

Collusion

-OTUS

Ghosting

Yeet

Litigate

Grapple

Eschew

Crusty

Optics

Legally Drunk

Thought Leader

Importantly

Accoutrements

Most Important Election Of Our Time

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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?

   Destined For Political Stardom

This one is really, really easy to call. Last year, nobody knew her name. This year, she is the shining focal point of the incoming House Democratic freshman class. In other words, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is already a rising star in the Democratic firmament.

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This is going to be nothing more than a glorified re-run (or "clip show") sort of column, because I've made this argument so many times before in the past, and nothing about the argument has really changed. What has changed (for the better) is that this is just about the best possible time politically to move such an argument to center stage.

I was inspired to write again about this subject again because of a tweet by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

It's completely unacceptable that members of Congress can force a government shutdown on partisan lines & then have Congressional salaries exempt from that decision.

Have some integrity.

In what I think is the first time I've ever used Twitter to directly communicate with an elected official (I'm still pretty passive, Twitter-wise), I responded back to her with a few links to previous columns:

Don't furlough them, STOP the paychecks. "No Budget, No Pay" works great in California! -- https://tinyurl.com/msjbklp

You're right, we need this on the federal level too. Please revive Bruce Braley's "No Budget, No Pay Act" in next Congress... -- https://tinyurl.com/7mj26h9

The more I think about this, the better an idea it sounds. When Congress reconvenes in January, the government is likely to still be partially shut down. The American public is sick and tired of this particular political tactic, and politicians really should be getting leery of it as well, since it has never actually achieved the goals set out by the hostage-takers. As leverage, shutting the government down seems to be pretty useless and self-defeating. The party pushing the shutdown almost always gets the lion's share of the blame from the public, which is exactly how this one is playing out as well. President Donald Trump pretty much assured this would happen when he pre-emptively announced to the cameras that he and he alone would be responsible for shutting the government down, over a week before it happened. The public has followed through, and largely blames Trump and his party for the current mess. As they should.

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[Program Note: I set out to write an actual column on politics today, then thought better of it. So it'll probably run Wednesday or Thursday instead. Of course, this Friday will be the second part of our year-end awards column, so be sure to check back for that. But to get into the holiday spirit of things, I thought it'd be better to just re-run this old column, which I tend to run as an annual tradition anyway. One technical note: I have corrected "Constantine's wife" to "Constantine's mother," because not checking my facts through sheer laziness has always been part of the fun of blogging. Mea culpa to Saint Helena, and all of that.]

Originally Published December 24, 2007

When is Christmas? And why?

These are questions guaranteed to get you funny looks when you pop them, especially in a gathering of wassail-soaked relatives. But if you're tired of hearing the seemingly-eternal "this is what Uncle Fred did when he was twelve" stories, and you're leery of bringing up politics with your kin from Outer Podunk, then it's at least a conversation-starter that's somewhat neutral. Plus, you can reaffirm your nearest-and-dearests' image of you as a latte-sipping fruitcake who moved away from the glory of the heartland and now lives on (say it with an embarrassed whisper) the coast.

OK, I should stop editorializing here. After all, the subject at hand is Christmas.

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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.

As always, these columns are the longest of the year, presented on the shortest days of the year. So sit back, grab some eggnog, and settle in front of the fire for our year-end awards. Without further ado, let's get right to it!

   Biggest Winner Of 2018

While there were many candidates for Biggest Winner Of 2018 who were indeed worthy, we had to go with two interlocking candidates. Runners-up include women (in general) for the "Year Of The Woman II" in the midterm elections; the resurgence of gun control as a Democratic political issue; and Conor Lamb, who pulled off one of the most impressive wins in a special House election in Pennsylvania's 18th district.

But our Biggest Winner Of 2018 is twofold: the Democrats in the midterms, and the biggest issue they campaigned on, protecting Obamacare.

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Program Notes:

Today, I am working feverishly on the first of our year-end awards columns, so didn't have time to write a new one. This will likely happen tomorrow, as well. As for next week, I really can't promise a whole lot of new columns then, either. Monday, I may feel the urge to write a new Christmas column (how about: "Santa caravan stopped at border" for a theme?), but can't absolutely promise I'll do so. Tuesday everyone's off, obviously. But then we will enter into the second frenzy of putting together a year-end awards column, so Wednesday and Thursday are in doubt as well. Look to see Christmas column re-runs from previous years. Friday, of course, will be the second of our awards columns. New Year's week is also kind of sketchy in my mind right now. There will be our traditional "banned words" column right after the new year, but Monday is also in doubt for new columns. At some point, regular original columns will begin appearing again like clockwork, but I really can't commit to a solid schedule as to how we get from here to there, sorry.

One final end-of-year note: I'm sad to say that our fundraising pledge drive seems to have seriously stalled. We rocketed up to beyond 75 percent of our goal very quickly, but since then the numbers have not budged. So we're reminding everyone of all those sad-eyed kittens once again, in the hopes of meeting our goal before the new year. We've got bills to pay here at CW.com, and we really don't want to contemplate a return to having to run ads here, so please give what you can towards that goal!

OK, with that out of the way, the following column ran almost a year ago, in January, as Congress was ramping up to shut down the government over the issue of immigration and Trump's beloved border wall. Not much has changed, other than the page on the calendar. Trump now seems like he's willing to back down from his hasty "proud to shut the government down" boast last week, but the situation largely remains the same. Which is why the following column is still a valid bit of political theater the Democrats should seriously consider using. Especially since Trump is now tweeting about it (and lying about what his U.S.M.C.A trade deal actually does, of course).

Originally published January 9, 2018

President Trump sat down today with the Democratic and Republican congressional leadership, in an attempt to hash out a compromise on immigration (specifically, the DACA program that Trump suspended). The larger budget negotiations may hinge on getting such a deal, but at this point the two sides are pretty far apart. Where Trump stands on the issue is pretty clear, which is to say he just wants to sign something and doesn't really care what's in it. This was evidenced by him appearing to agree with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer about the need for a "clean DACA" bill in the negotiations, only to be yanked back by the Republicans in the room who want a whole lot more than a clean DACA bill. But it's obvious Trump just wants a bill to sign, no matter what it contains.

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Sometimes in politics it is hard to see the big picture, since we so often are consumed with small-picture details of the moment. So I'd like to take a step back today and admire how the Overton window among Democrats is rapidly shifting in a very positive and progressive direction. Because what was considered radical and even unthinkable not so long ago is now becoming so mainstream that Democratic politicians risk their own political survival if they don't support such ideas. These shifts in perception normally take place over a very long period of time, but that doesn't seem to be the case right now.

To define the term: the "Overton window" is an attempt to measure what is politically acceptable at any given time. From Wikipedia's definition of the term:

The Overton window is an approach to identifying which ideas define the domain of acceptability within a democracy's possible governmental policies. Proponents of policies outside the window seek to convince or persuade the public in order to move and/or expand the window. Proponents of current policies, or similar ones, within the window seek to convince people that policies outside it should be deemed unacceptable.

The spectrum the Overton window shifts and expands and contracts upon has been further defined as ranging through:

• Unthinkable
• Radical
• Acceptable
• Sensible
• Popular
• Policy

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