ChrisWeigant.com

Archive of Articles in the "The Supreme Court" Category

Uncharted Territory

[ Posted Monday, June 27th, 2022 – 14:41 UTC ]

Rarely do I sit down and write a column just to proclaim my abject ignorance about a political subject, but today seems an appropriate day to do so -- to make a larger point about pundits everywhere: nobody knows this right now. Nobody. Don't believe them if they tell you they do, because we are truly in uncharted territory.

The Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade was always going to have an impact on the upcoming election. I've been saying that pretty much ever since they heard the case, months ago. It became patently obvious when the draft decision was leaked. But still it seemed to catch some by surprise. The real unanswerable questions here are: How much impact will it have on the election? And which party will benefit?

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Obama Was Wrong

[ Posted Friday, June 24th, 2022 – 15:53 UTC ]

Barack Obama created many memorable soundbites and campaign slogans, but one of the best-remembered is (as he phrased it in a tweet): "There are no red states or blue states, just the United States." This call for unity in politics was generally well-received, since it spoke to (as another former president once put it) "the better angels of our nature."

But what is becoming more and more obvious is how wrong Obama got this. His words sound blissfully naive, at this point. Because we are devolving further into the Divided States of America, seemingly with every passing day. Today's Supreme Court decision which overturned Roe v. Wade is merely another milestone on this grim journey.

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The House January 6th Select Committee Hearings [Episode 5]

[ Posted Thursday, June 23rd, 2022 – 18:56 UTC ]

Today saw the final June hearing of the House Select Committee on January 6th. Next week, Congress scarpers off on one of their many two-week holiday breaks, ostensibly for the July 4th holiday, so we won't be getting another of these hearings until the week of July 11th, at the earliest. But the committee does indeed plan to hold more public hearings, although they continue to hold their cards very close to the vest on exactly how many such hearings will take place, as well as the subject of any of the upcoming hearings. Perhaps this is done to build tension and interest among the public, or perhaps it is just because they are now reportedly being flooded with new information and new testimony, all offered up since the beginning of the public hearings earlier this month.

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Prosecute The Fake Electors

[ Posted Wednesday, June 22nd, 2022 – 15:19 UTC ]

Donald Trump's Big Lie wasn't just a political ploy. Parts of it were criminal, because people (including Trump himself) didn't just theorize or promote the falsehood that the election had been somehow "stolen" from Trump, they acted on it. And -- the violence of January 6th aside -- some of those actions were indeed criminal. The most obvious was the fact that in seven states groups of Republicans took it upon themselves to proclaim themselves the rightful slate of electors to the Electoral College, and they tried to foist this fraudulent proclamation upon the rest of the country. That is election fraud, and every single participant in this scheme should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law -- if only to deter others from doing anything like it in the future.

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The House January 6th Select Committee Hearings [Episode 4]

[ Posted Tuesday, June 21st, 2022 – 17:44 UTC ]

Today was the fourth in the series of June hearings televised by the House Select Committee, and it turned out to be one of the most effective yet. The emotional tension in the room started somber but built into outrage and fear at the end. The subject at hand today was Donald Trump and his henchmen attempting to interfere in the election process at the state level, the illegal scheme to create out of whole cloth fake slates of electors, and the impact all of this had upon the people who stood firmly for the United States Constitution and the rule of law.

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Friday Talking Points -- 50 Years From Watergate

[ Posted Friday, June 17th, 2022 – 15:55 UTC ]

We do realize that last week we semi-committed to publishing regular Friday Talking Points columns if there weren't any previous primetime Thursday-night hearings to cover from the House Select Committee on January 6th. However, there was one thing that came out of yesterday's hearing that is not getting nearly enough media or public attention, and we feel obligated to try to change this -- mostly because it is so important.

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The House January 6th Select Committee Hearings [Episode 3]

[ Posted Thursday, June 16th, 2022 – 16:09 UTC ]

There were only two witnesses for the entire time today, Judge Luttig and Greg Jacob, who was Vice President Mike Pence's chief legal counsel at the time. This position allowed Jacob to either be present for or at the heart of all the discussions being held between the vice president, the president, and all the crackpot lawyers who were attempting to convince Pence to either break or just ignore the Constitution and the relevant law which outlines the process of electing a president (the "Electoral Count Act of 1887").

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Preventing It From Happening Again

[ Posted Tuesday, June 14th, 2022 – 16:39 UTC ]

While I listen to and read all the pundits' reactions to the hearings the House select committee is televising, what amazes me is how few of them seem to realize what the actual point of these hearings and of the investigation itself truly is (or should be, at any rate). Many see it and interpret it all through a political lens: "What do the Democrats want to accomplish by all of this? Will it all help or hurt Democrats or Republicans in the midterms? Are the hearings changing anyone's mind?" But these questions all really miss the focal point of it all. Because the end goal is not actually a political one. The end goal should be to prevent it from ever happening again, period.

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The House January 6th Select Committee Hearings [Episode 2]

[ Posted Monday, June 13th, 2022 – 16:26 UTC ]

Early this morning (very early, for those of us on the West Coast!), the second June hearing of the House January 6th committee was supposed to get underway. This didn't happen on time, due to a last-minute changeup in the program. One of the two in-person witnesses for the first hour, Bill Stepien, cancelled his appearance at the last minute. Stepien was Donald Trump's campaign manager for the last three or four months of the 2020 presidential campaign, and was thus in a unique position to provide an eyewitness account of what went both before and after the election.

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The House January 6th Select Committee Hearings [Episode 1]

[ Posted Friday, June 10th, 2022 – 17:24 UTC ]

Last night's hearing was meant to be an overview of the upcoming miniseries season. The next seven hearings were outlined, which will expose what Representative Liz Cheney called Donald Trump's "seven-point plan" to overturn a free and fair election. Next week, we will get at least two and possibly three more hearings (the official January 6th Committee website only lists the first two (as of this writing), on Monday and Wednesday mornings, but it is being widely reported there will be a third next Thursday at 1:00 P.M. Eastern time). That's a fairly fast pace, and it looks like the next two weeks will be chock full of hearings. I am assuming that at the end there will be a final hearing in primetime which will wrap up the entire storyline and present the full case to the American people about what went on, who was responsible, and what we should do now to ensure that it never happens again.

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