I'm not sure why, but it seems to be a general rule in life that when you go on vacation all sorts of other unrelated stuff pops up that you have to deal with at the same time. I am back from vacation (which was relaxing -- while I did watch Trump's primetime speech last Thursday, I also ignored all news and headlines for four days straight, which is my idea of a good vacation from work!). But the other unrelated stuff had piled up, so I spent today dealing with some of it. Because of this, I had no time to write a new column today. My apologies.

I may have to take off one or more days in the next few weeks to finish dealing with everything, but I am going to make the effort to at least provide new Friday columns from now on. Again, my apologies for having all my "in real life" stuff impact my columns here, but it truly was unavoidable. Mea culpa.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

What was expected to be a free-for-all contest among Maine Democrats instead turned into a coronation this weekend. After Graham Platner ended his campaign to take on Senator Susan Collins in November, Maine's Democratic Party only had a couple of weeks to name a replacement to appear on the ballot instead of Platner. They could have used any method they wanted to select a new nominee, and the method they settled on led to an anticipation of a messy convention fight. Instead, what happened was one candidate essentially swept the field of challengers and will now (barring any unforeseen problems) be officially named the new Democratic Senate candidate at the party convention next weekend.

The process was designed to at least incorporate some sort of input from Maine Democratic voters, but without full participation by all of them. The result, however, was closer to what happened after President Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy for re-election and Kamala Harris wrapped up the party's nomination within mere hours. Whether what happened in Maine was the best way forward will doubtlessly be debated in the future, and it will depend in large part on whether Susan Collins is actually defeated in November.

The Democrat who will now take her on is Troy Jackson, a former state senate leader who ran for governor earlier this year. The key to his stunning victory was his support from Maine's Unions, who were far more organized than the supporters of any of the other candidates in the foreshortened race.

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I start with a reminder: regular new columns will resume again here on Monday. But since I'm on vacation, I had to run something, and this stood one out for me, as a sort of commentary on the unexpected death of Senator Lindsey Graham (which spurred the conversation about age all over again). It also shows (as an addendum to an article I wrote last week about his speech in Tel Aviv) how serious Rahm Emanuel has been all year long in paving the road for his eventual run for the White House. In any case, my conclusion was different than his but I have to admit it's at least an idea worth considering.

Originally published January 21st, 2026

Rahm Emanuel has apparently launched his 2028 presidential bid. A wonky story about him appeared prominently in today's Washington Post, on the subject of his ideas for fixing education in America. He also recently tossed out a different provocative idea during a recent speech, which further indicates he is in the process of building a political platform to run on. Rahm Emanuel is one of those politicians with an outsized opinion of his own popularity and a strong conviction that the country is ready for him to lead it. That's nothing new -- people like that are a dime a dozen in Washington -- but his new idea is certainly an interesting one: instituting a mandatory retirement age for everyone in the federal government.

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Once again, for those who may have missed it, I am on vacation for the rest of this week. Tonight, Donald Trump is scheduled to give a speech on "election integrity," which is more than a little worrisome. There is speculation in the media (as of this writing) that he will reveal information that has so far not been made public, and try to somehow make the case that foreign actors somehow "rigged" the 2020 election for Joe Biden. This will all doubtlessly be a continuation of Trump's "Big Lie," which Trump has clung to ever since.

The midterm congressional elections will happen in early November, which is now less than four months away. Trump has already been making drastic moves (such as firing all the members of a federal elections security board) seemingly designed to sow chaos (or worse) when the ballots are cast. Which is why tonight's speech is so worrisome. And which is why I felt the need to run the following column again. Trump's Big Lie is poisonous to American democracy, which is why I am not exactly looking forward to tonight's speech.

Originally published January 6th, 2026

Today is the fifth anniversary of the attempted violent insurrection at the United States Capitol. We all watched it play out on live television, as a riotous mob attacked police officers who were doing their duty defending the building and the members of Congress inside it. We saw it all with our own eyes, both on that sad day and afterwards, as more video footage was released. It is obvious what the video footage shows. All you have to do is watch it to understand exactly what happened that day.

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For those that missed my note yesterday, I will be on vacation for the rest of this week. Since Donald Trump is planning on giving a speech dedicated to his Big Lie tomorrow night, I chose two articles to run in response, long before I hear what he has to say. Because the dangers are already there for everyone to see, and I have a suspicion they're all about to get a lot more acute.

Originally published February 4th, 2026

Up until now, some Democratic worries about the upcoming midterm elections have been dismissed by the "It could never happen here" crowd as unfounded nightmares. They pooh-pooh such worries as being laughably outlandish and accuse people who express these worries for overreacting about things that couldn't possibly happen right here in the good ol' U.S. of A. But this week should make such scenarios a whole lot less laughable and a whole lot more worrisome.

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Program Note: For the rest of this week, I will be on vacation. I'll be posting old columns to fill the time up, and new columns will resume on Monday.

Today's rerun was an easy choice, even though it was originally published less than two months ago. Because today the House of Representatives actually passed the Sunshine Protection Act, by a vote of 308-117. As the article below mentions, what's unusual about that vote count is that it was amazingly bipartisan, with 193 Republicans and 114 Democrats voting in favor of it. Not many things are that bipartisan these days.

It is still uncertain what the bill's prospects are in the Senate, but the idea does have one powerful proponent, since Donald Trump has made it a pet issue (Trump owns several golf courses, it is worth pointing out). So if he can arm-twist enough Senate Republicans, the bill has at least a decent chance of actually passing and being signed into law.

The whole country going on permanent Daylight Saving Time will be a big change, of course. It remains to be seen how popular such a move will be. But I have to at least revise my earlier cynicism about the possibility of this experiment becoming reality at this point, since it seems closer than any previous time to actually happening.

Originally published May 19th, 2026

Can Congress manage to solve a problem that a huge majority of Americans agree exists -- but also one that people are fiercely divided on the best solution to? Or will the clock run out yet again, leaving us all in the dark?

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As the M.O.U. crumbles, the price of gas is going back up again. That's where America stands with Donald Trump's on-again/off-again war of choice with Iran. The Memorandum Of Understanding that both sides signed less than a month ago now lies in tatters, Trump just announced that U.S. military ships will re-impose the blockade of Iranian ports, and ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz are under attack again from Iran. All of which has spooked the world's oil market, where prices are (once again) rising fast.

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Last week, we warned everyone that July was going to be a sketchy month for us, in terms of our ability to write these Friday columns. So we begin today with a program update. Today's offering is not a complete Friday Talking Points column. It is bare-bones, at best. We're not even really going to attempt reviewing the past week, and we're also not going to write out talking points at the end (although we did complete the two awards sections). Just to warn everyone up front.

Next week, there will be no new Friday Talking Points column at all. But then hopefully by the week after that (the 24th), things will return to normal here and we'll have a full column once again. Again, we apologize for the intermittent nature of the column this month, but we've got a lot of other things going on that are taking up so much time and energy that doing all the work to put a full column together was impossible.

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Rahm Emanuel just launched his 2028 presidential campaign -- in Israel. He did so by giving what might be called a "Sister Souljah moment" speech in Tel Aviv, where he delicately tried to thread the needle of addressing the relationship between the U.S. and Israel in a realistic fashion without burning his bridges with either American Democrats or Israeli Jews. That is a challenging thing to attempt these days, which is why Emanuel's speech was such an important political development.

I'm not going to get into dissecting Emanuel's words too deeply here, or even stating my own beliefs or viewpoint of what should happen in the relationship between the two countries. Instead, I'd prefer to examine the political aspects of it here at home.

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As of this writing, Graham Platner has still not officially dropped out of the Maine Senate race. That may have changed by the time you read this, however, because he is reportedly going to make some sort of announcement tonight. Everyone knows what he's going to do already, though. So the two big questions before Maine Democrats now are: who is going to replace him, and how will the replacement candidate be selected?

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