Four states hold primary elections today: New York, South Carolina, Utah, and Colorado. There are interesting races in all of them -- including a major Democratic showdown in New York -- but the one that interests me the most will happen in Colorado. Because the voters in one House district will have the choice of bringing an end to Lauren Boebert's congressional career.

Boebert's case is interesting for a number of reasons, not least of which is her toxic personality (she is one of the queens of "anger politics," fighting hard for the reigning title with Marjorie Taylor Greene...). Her obnoxiousness is highly repellant and she deserves ejection from the House by Colorado voters on those grounds alone, in fact. More interesting to the politically geeky, however, is that she is attempting a rather astonishing bit of carpetbaggery in her current run. She is not running to be re-elected in the district she now represents, but instead a different district -- with a heavier Republican lean to it. It is an open seat, made possible by the voluntary midterm retirement of fellow Colorado Republican Ken Buck.

Continue Reading »

For very personal reasons (family), there will be no column today. Regular columns will resume tomorrow.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Maybe it's just us, but this week seemed like a waiting game. Perhaps the midweek holiday had something to do with it, but everything in the political world right now seems to be on hold in anticipation of next Thursday's first presidential debate. The debate is going to be incredibly early in the campaign schedule, but nobody really knows what this will mean until after the dust settles. Who will benefit the most from the earliness of it all? Well, that all depends on how they do, of course.

Continue Reading »

What is it with Donald Trump and sharks? He seems to be obsessing on the subject somewhat, which only goes to confirm a story Stormy Daniels told a while back. Of course, sharks are pretty scary critters in general, but Trump seems to be exhibiting what can only be called galeophobia -- or, to semi-translate that from the Greek, "sharkophobia."

Perhaps Trump was scarred for life when the movie Jaws first came out, almost 50 years ago? After all, that was when galeophobia sank its teeth (so to speak) into the American psyche in a big way for the first time. Jaws is a frightening movie that is arguably one of the best summer horror flicks of all time, pitting a giant man-eating shark against a peaceful seaside town and Captain Quint (a somewhat-crazed shark-hunter).

Or perhaps Donald Trump recently watched a foreign-language film that's been making a splash (again, so to speak), Under Paris -- which is a sort of cross between Jaws, Sharknado, and Les Miserables. But that's a little hard to fathom -- Trump actually watching a whole movie with subtitles? Sacre bleu! It is to laugh, non?

Continue Reading »

President Joe Biden has had to walk a tightrope on the subject of immigration during his term in office. He has supported programs that were a holdover from the administration of Donald Trump, and just recently announced a tightening of the rules on claiming asylum at the border in an effort to slow the flow of people making such claims. Neither one of these policies went over very well with the progressives in his own party, but this week Biden shifted gears and announced a policy that will benefit the lives of approximately 500,000 people. Undocumented spouses of America citizens who have lived in the country for 10 years or more will have a much easier path to citizenship under Biden's new program. Politically, this may provide a balance to Biden's more restrictive moves on immigration.

Continue Reading »

The Washington Post is now reporting that Robert F. Kennedy Junior will not meet the criteria that CNN instituted for inclusion in the first general-election presidential debate. This is not really all that surprising, since the criteria were essentially written to exclude Kennedy and other third-party candidates. And while Biden supporters might cheer the news that only President Joe Biden and Donald Trump will participate, it does highlight the hurdles built in to the American political system for those without a "D" or "R" after their names.

Continue Reading »

Maryland Governor Wes Moore today signed a blanket pardon that covers 175,000 marijuana crimes committed in the state, reaching back to the 1980s. It could wind up covering even more, since records older than that are stored on paper -- meaning they will not be automatically pardoned, but if people from back then apply for one they will also get a pardon. This already covers an estimated 100,000 people (some of whom have multiple marijuana offenses). Moore is following in the footsteps of other states and jurisdictions who have already either pardoned or expunged criminal records for simple marijuana possession or use. What this all means is that not only is the War On Weed ending in state after state, but in some places people are retroactively trying to heal the damage the War On Weed has done to millions of people.

Continue Reading »

Happy Flag Day, everyone!

[We have to begin with a program note here today. We were on vacation last Friday, so this is the first Friday Talking Points column in two weeks. But unfortunately, while flying back home we caught a flu or cold or something on the airplane (not COVID, we tested...). So we're not exactly on top of our game this week, and the column could be a little fuzzy-headed and incoherent. Or "more than usual," we suppose.... In any case, we didn't want to totally punt and leave a three-week gap, so we did what we could with what's been going on over the past week in politics. Hopefully by next week we'll be all better and the quality will improve!]

The biggest political news of the week by far was Hunter Biden being convicted in record time on all three felony gun charges lodged against him. The jury spent only about three hours before returning these verdicts, which completely undercut the narrative Donald Trump has been spouting about how the justice system is "two-tiered" -- by which he means: "weaponized against Republicans while Democrats get a free pass." Kind of hard to make that argument when the president's own son just got convicted of felonies and is facing up to ten years in prison.

Continue Reading »

There was significant news today on reproductive rights, from two separate directions. The Supreme Court unanimously (!) overturned a case that challenged the F.D.A.'s approval of mifepristone, one of the two most commonly used abortion pills in the country. The unanimity was possible because the high court essentially punted on the legal question and instead ruled that the plaintiffs had no legal standing to bring their case. Meanwhile, in the Senate, a bill to create a federal right to in-vitro fertilization failed, mostly on party lines. Last week a bill that would have given federal protections to contraceptives also failed. Both will be used in campaign advertising by Democrats to paint Republicans as being against both contraception rights and I.V.F.

Continue Reading »

Two weeks from tomorrow, CNN will host the first general election presidential debate of the 2024 cycle. This is unprecedented, because it will happen so early in the campaign season. In fact, neither person on stage will officially be their party's nominee at this point, since the conventions will happen afterwards. It will be "Presumptive Republican Nominee Donald Trump" versus "Presumptive Democratic Nominee President Joe Biden." That alone sets it off from every other televised presidential debate.

So far, only two debates are planned, which makes the first one more important than usual. What everyone is really waiting to learn is what the ground rules of the debate will actually be -- will microphones be cut off when the other candidate is talking, for instance? What ground rules CNN lays down (and how closely they hew to them) is going to be a critical factor in what type of debate the American public gets to see.

Donald Trump loves nothing more than to "win" a debate by being the biggest blowhard anyone has ever seen. He yells over the other candidates, he spews a firehose of lies, and he refuses to admit any reality that isn't part of his bizarre worldview. Other candidates have never quite known what to do when on a stage next to Trump, in fact.

Continue Reading »