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.

Conventional wisdom states that an incumbent president almost always does poorly in his first re-election debate. Being president means not only being immersed in the job of running the nation, but also having very few people stridently challenging you on your positions and your decisions. Presidents don't always completely surround themselves with the proverbial "yes men," but even with dissenting voices there is a large measure of respect for the president that simply will not be present in a partisan debate. That's the way the thinking goes, at any rate.

So will President Joe Biden turn in a weak debate performance next week? Or will he rhetorically clobber Donald Trump? Well, we will be tuning in to find out, that's for sure. CNN has announced that the microphones will be muted when each candidate is not supposed to be talking, so this should avoid hearing Trump try to shout all over the hosts and Biden's answers. That is a gigantic relief for anyone who remembers what Trump was like in the first debate held with Biden back in 2020. Of course, Trump may not be able to contain himself and may just try shouting into a dead mic anyway, in an effort to rattle Biden. This could be effective, actually, since if the television audience can barely hear Trump fulminating away in the background but Biden is standing right next to him, it could lead to some disjointed moments. But we'll just have to see -- maybe Trump will follow the rules after all. And then again maybe he won't.

The other significant debate news announced this week was that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. won't be on the stage. He failed to qualify on either of the criteria CNN laid down -- not having enough polls showing him at 15 percent or better and not qualifying for the ballot in enough states to win the Electoral College -- so it'll just be Trump and Biden head-to-head. R.F.K. Jr. is not exactly a happy camper about this situation, but then that was to be expected.

Both Trump and Biden are reportedly doing their own versions of "debate prep," with Team Trump announcing that they are holding "policy discussions" rather than actual mock debates, which is kind of amusing when you consider how little the concept of "policy" drives Trump's campaign. Biden, meanwhile, has sequestered himself up at Camp David with his team, who are spending what appears to be an entire week on prepping the president for verbal combat. But while Biden certainly can defend his record in office and talk about his plans for a second term, one sincerely hopes that a lot of his debate prep will go into how to counter Trump's bombastic nonsense and firehose of lies. Because that is the real challenge, when debating Trump.

Team Trump has apparently realized that they have been setting the bar far too low for expectations of Biden's debate performance. Up until now, Trump's go-to line about Biden is that he "can't string two sentences together," because he is obviously such a doddering old man. But that would be an incredibly low hurdle for Biden to clear, which has seemed to dawn on Team Trump of late. Now they are pushing the notion that Biden will be pumped full of drugs which will somehow transform him into a cogent and potent debate adversary. In other words, Trump is pre-emptively preparing his excuses for why he is going to lose, which is a rather odd thing to do (since it doesn't exactly exude confidence, obviously).

Maybe that's because when Trump has tried exuding confidence lately, he winds up shooting himself in the foot. He loves to brag about a cognitive test he got while he was president, as if it was some sort of test of his I.Q. or something (which it decidedly was not). This week he returned to the subject and (as he is fond of doing) challenged Joe Biden to take such a test. The only problem was that he tried to name-drop the doctor who gave him the test but he got the guy's name wrong. So much for his cognitive superiority, eh?

Also this week, Trump claimed he knew for a fact that Joan Rivers voted for him in 2016. This, despite her being dead for two years before the election. If anyone needs a reminder of how often Trump screws up like this, the folks at MeidasTouch have put together a wonderful tour through a whole bunch of Trumpian "senior moments."

Team Biden has their own new ad out, and it's a direct attack on Trump's new status as a convicted criminal. There was some trepidation on the Biden team as to whether they should lean in on this subject or not, but thankfully they decided to do the right thing and remind everyone of Trump's new status now. Perhaps because more and more people are realizing that maybe electing a convicted felon to the highest office in the land might not be all that great an idea, Joe Biden is doing better in the polls. He even led a Fox News poll for the first time this year, and is now ahead of Trump in the 538 average. So maybe Trump's conviction is slowly sinking in and slowly convincing more and more independents and undecided voters that Biden is indeed the better choice.

The Supreme Court continues to make news, by following up its breathtakingly dangerous ruling tossing out the ban on "bump stocks" with some actual sanity. They just announced that the laws banning domestic abusers from owning guns are indeed constitutional -- in an 8-1 decision. But of course, their biggest cases remain unresolved for now. The next couple of weeks are going to be momentous ones at the high court, that's for sure.

And to close on, Louisiana just passed a law requiring the Ten Commandments be posted in all state classrooms. From the 1980s until now, this was considered completely unconstitutional since it is obviously a government endorsement of one religion over all others, but then again who knows what the current court may decide?

We have a few Honorable Mention awards to hand out, the first of which goes to Chuck Schumer, for continuing to use Senate votes to pressure Republicans and provide campaign-ad fodder for Democrats. This week, after the Supreme Court callously and dangerously decided that "bump stocks" were not, technically, machine guns (and therefore couldn't be banned), Schumer immediately brought up a bill which would indeed ban bump stocks. It was defeated by Republicans forthwith, of course. Look for it in a Democratic Senate campaign ad near you very soon, that's all we can say....

Our second Honorable Mention goes to Yevgeny "Eugene" Vindman, who was a star witness/whistleblower in Donald Trump's first impeachment. For doing his duty to the Constitution, both he and his twin brother suffered blowback from Trump, which essentially ended his military career. But now he's launching a second career, as a politician. This week, Vindman won the Democratic primary in Virginia for an open House seat (the current Democratic representative is stepping down to run for governor). The district is home to a large percentage of military and military contractors and veterans, but the Republicans also nominated a former Army Green Beret, so it should be an interesting contest.

But our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award goes to Maryland Governor Wes Moore, who this week pardoned 175,000 marijuana convictions, reaching back many decades.

We wrote about this earlier in the week, when it was announced, and we sincerely hope that other Democratic (and even Republican) governors follow Moore's lead on the issue. Maryland isn't the first state to issue blanket pardons for past weed offenses (NORML has a full list -- Maryland was in fact the tenth state to issue such pardons), but Moore's action was significant for how broad it was. This is why over 100,000 people will benefit from the pardons, while in many of the other states with such pardons it only applies to a much smaller population (with the exception of Massachusetts, to be fair, which leads the stats on the issue).

The War On Weed is ending. But this shouldn't just be a matter of changing the laws to reflect reality (and sanity) on marijuana. It should also involve doing what can be done now to correct some of the injustices of the past. Many lives were shattered in the War On Weed -- not from smoking marijuana, but from the steep price society enacted for those who were caught and prosecuted for doing so. Wes Moore took another giant step forward in this effort this week, and for doing so he is our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week.

[Congratulate Maryland Governor Wes Moore on his official contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]

We're not even entirely sure if he qualifies, since he does not actually hold public office himself, but the magnitude of the bombshell was enough for us to decide that George Norcross deserves the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week anyway.

Here is the basic story, for those of you (like us) who had never heard his name before now:

New Jersey's attorney general on Monday charged one of the state's most powerful Democrats and his allies in a sweeping indictment alleging a long-running corruption scheme.

The charges against George Norcross represent another seismic event in New Jersey politics in a year that's already seen a drastic disruption of its notorious boss systems. And George Norcross is often held up as the symbol of a New Jersey political boss. He has long been the subject of scrutiny by law enforcement and a political task force, but has never been charged.

The indictment, brought by Attorney General Matt Platkin, portrays years of extortion and threats. Norcross has run a criminal enterprise for at least the past 12 years, Platkin said, causing hurt to businesses, individuals and "especially -- especially -- to the city of Camden," one of the state's poorest cities.

"The Norcross enterprise manipulated government programs and processes designed to attract development and investment to instead suit their own financial desires," Platkin said at a press conference. "Instead of contributing to the successes of the city of Camden, through a series of criminal acts alleged in the state's case, the Norcross enterprise took the Camden waterfront all for themselves."

In essence, Norcross was the "boss" (to use a very New Jersey term) of a South Jersey Democratic political machine. Like the political machines of yore, it doled out favors to its friends and punished those who didn't play along. There truly has been an (ongoing) political earthquake this year in Jersey politics, at least on the Democratic side. Senator Bob Menendez is in the middle of a corruption trial, the Democratic machine's power to arrange its primary ballots to favor its own hand-picked candidates has been struck down by judges, and now one of the most powerful machine bosses in the state is facing racketeering charges.

Norcross "personally attended the press conference" where the indictment was announced, planting himself in the front row so he could stare down the attorney general. So his trial will likely be a lively one.

Over the past few decades, we have seen the fall of several state Democratic "machines" (in Illinois and in New York most notably), to some degree or another. More and more it is looking like this is the year for dismantling the New Jersey Democratic machine, and this indictment is merely one part of this effort.

Of course, Norcross is innocent until proven guilty, but for now we're going to hand him this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week anyway.

[George Norcross is a private citizen, and it is our longstanding policy not to provide contact information for such persons, sorry.]

Volume 756 (6/21/24)

We begin again with a program note, since next week one way or another our Friday column will be devoted pretty much entirely to reviewing the previous evening's debate. We're not sure whether we will use the Friday Talking Points format to do so or whether we will just run a simple debate analysis column, but either way it'll be a "one-subject column," just to warn everyone in advance.

For this week's talking points, we are looking ahead to the debate, so we chose seven talking points as suggestions for President Joe Biden to use on the debate stage. Some of these are general comments on Trump and some are specific to the issues of the campaign. So without further ado, let's get started, shall we?

   Remember COVID?

This first one is to counter Trump trying to paint a rosy-tinted image of his first term in office (which seems almost guaranteed to happen).

"I'm sorry, but you seem to have some selective memory there. For voters contemplating the question: 'Are you better off now than you were four years ago?' I only have one thing to say -- I remember COVID. Four years ago, we were listening to Donald Trump desperately trying to wish the pandemic away and suggesting that people drink bleach and somehow shine sunlight inside of their bodies. He ignored his experts, he downplayed the virus, he kept promising it would all just magically go away, and the worst part was that he showed no national leadership. He forced the states to fight each other over getting critical supplies like masks and ventilators. There were paper towel and toilet paper shortages. There were empty shelves in the stores. He didn't want people to test for the virus because he didn't like the high numbers and figured if fewer people tested the numbers would go down. Donald Trump did not care that tens of thousands of people were dying out there -- all he cared about was how it all impacted him. That was four years ago, folks. And I don't know about you, but I remember."

   He has snapped

This is going to be a central theme for Joe Biden's campaign, so he'll almost certainly use the line at some point.

"When Donald Trump lost in 2020, something snapped in him. He has lost all touch with reality. He is on his own personal crusade for vengeance. Just listen to him -- he is much worse than he ever was in his first term, and he seems to be getting worse and worse with every passing day. After the 2020 election, something just snapped in his mind, and he hasn't been the same since."

   You lost, dude

Hammer this one home too. It will absolutely enrage Trump.

"Look, Donald... you lost, dude. You did not win. The election wasn't stolen from you, what happened is that more people voted for me than for you, period. There was no grand conspiracy, you just lost. You launched over 60 lawsuits and they were all thrown out because there was no evidence to prove your wild conspiracy theories. You just lost. Look at him, folks -- not only is he a loser, he is the biggest sore loser in all of American history. And who likes a sore loser, really? Man up, dude. Admit it. You lost, and you are going to lose again this year."

   What was your doctor's name again?

If Trump tries to brag about his wonderful "cognitive test" (especially if he lies that it was some sort of "intelligence test"), there's an easy putdown Biden should reach for.

"I'm sorry... the last time you brought up this cognitive test, you couldn't remember the name of the doctor who gave it to you. You know -- the White House doctor who we all found out was handing out serious prescription drugs like candy to anyone in your White House who asked him for them? That doctor? What was his name again? Maybe this time you'll get it right...."

   "Everyone" didn't want Roe overturned

This is a lie that Trump has latched onto, because it allows him to portray himself as somehow making everybody happy (which, obviously, is far from true on this issue).

"You know, you keep repeating that lie -- that 'everyone' wanted to see Roe v. Wade overturned and the issue sent back to the states. You have convinced yourself that people on all sides of the issue really wanted that to happen, but it is just not true. It is, in fact, a gigantic lie. The majority of the American people were, in fact, quite happy with Roe being the law of the land. And now millions of women are no longer fully in control of their own bodies. We are fighting back in state after state, but don't delude yourself -- 'everyone' didn't want this to happen. Far from it, in fact."

   But you wouldn't understand what I am talking about

This one has the opportunity for a huge insult, straight to Trump's face.

"You keep saying you'd end the war in Ukraine, but we all know how you'd do that. You'd hand Vladimir Putin everything he wanted. You'd tell Ukraine to give up huge parts of their country to Russia. You know, there's a word for that -- it's called 'appeasement.' And I would insult you by calling you Neville Chamberlain to your face, but I won't -- because you wouldn't even understand what I was talking about, would you? You'd not only go down in history as being Neville Chamberlain all over again, you wouldn't even know why that is an insult."

   Convicted felon

Oh, you just know this one's going to come up!

"I don't think the American people are ready to elect a convicted felon to the highest office in the land. Donald Trump is now officially a criminal -- 34 times over. And he's got 54 more felony charges outstanding as well. If he gets elected, he will use his power to declare himself king and try to make all the other cases against him go away. If he doesn't get elected, however, he's going to have to face a jury of his peers for all those additional counts, which include fomenting the biggest coup attempt in American history. And he's already been convicted once -- not by me, not on my instructions, but instead just like every other criminal in this country -- by a jury of his peers."

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground