[ Posted Tuesday, March 2nd, 2021 – 18:11 UTC ]
The issue of voting rights could be a pivotal one for Democrats, if they would focus intensely on it for the next month or so, and by doing so get their message out to as many people as possible. The political equation is pretty simple to understand, after all: Democrats are trying to make it easier for people to vote, while Republicans are making it as difficult as they know how. Republicans do not want you to be able to easily vote, because when that happens, they lose elections. Plain and simple. And they're even flat-out admitting it, these days.
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[ Posted Friday, February 26th, 2021 – 18:31 UTC ]
In the past week, two of the biggest political stories have been which way the Senate parliamentarian was going to rule on an arcane rule in the chamber, and how one of President Joe Biden's nominees might be in trouble because in the past she had (gasp!) tweeted such mean things as: "vampires have more heart than Ted Cruz" (a statement that is not provably true only because vampires are mythical creatures while the heartlessness of Ted Cruz is, sadly, all too real).
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[ Posted Tuesday, February 16th, 2021 – 16:58 UTC ]
I had a choice of topics for today's column, one of which was weighing in on the debate over the possibility of earmarks returning to Congress. I say this to make a point -- American politics may not be back to normal by a long shot (since the Republican Party obviously hasn't quite returned from their Looney Tunes vacation yet), but in his four weeks in office, President Joe Biden has moved us all a significant way down the road to normalcy once again.
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[ Posted Saturday, February 13th, 2021 – 18:13 UTC ]
Donald Trump's second impeachment trial came to an end today. This was fully expected, however the beginning of the day contained some serious uncertainties about how long the trial would go on for. Once that was settled, however, things moved towards the inevitable conclusion.
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[ Posted Friday, February 12th, 2021 – 19:43 UTC ]
On this date in history, ten-score-and-twelve years ago, Abraham Lincoln was born. Also on this date, 22 years ago, the Senate voted to acquit Bill Clinton of the charges made against him in only the second impeachment trial in American history. Today, this year, saw the fourth day of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial in the Senate. Today was the day the legal team for Donald Trump got to present their defense.
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[ Posted Thursday, February 11th, 2021 – 18:32 UTC ]
On the third day of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, the prosecution rested. Having made a very strong and climactic case yesterday, today the House managers finished up their presentation and ended with their closing argument, part of which was a pre-buttal to the expected arguments from the defense.
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[ Posted Wednesday, February 10th, 2021 – 19:23 UTC ]
The second day of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial was dedicated to the opening of the prosecution's case against him. The House managers have a full 16 hours to present their case, but it remains to be seen how much of that they'll actually use. When I began writing this (during their dinner break), they had already been at it for five and a half hours, and they didn't adjourn for the day -- but then later they only used a limited amount of time afterwards (the total came in under the full eight hours allotted for the day, in other words).
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[ Posted Tuesday, February 9th, 2021 – 18:07 UTC ]
The second impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump began today in the United States Senate. Today was largely a procedural day, which began with an initial vote to adopt the impeachment rules that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell worked out yesterday. This was followed by an extended argument from both the House impeachment managers and Trump's lawyers about whether even holding this trial was constitutional or not. At the end, the Senate voted to affirm that the trial is indeed constitutional, by a vote of 56 to 44. The trial then adjourned until noon tomorrow.
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[ Posted Monday, February 8th, 2021 – 16:48 UTC ]
For only the fourth time in American history (and for the second time in approximately one year), the Senate will convene an impeachment trial tomorrow, to consider the charges against Donald Trump. Even at this late date, however, there are many unanswered questions about what exactly is going to take place this week, so I thought I'd review where things stand as of now (some of these issues may actually be resolved by the time I write, edit, format, and post this article, I should mention in advance).
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[ Posted Friday, January 29th, 2021 – 18:29 UTC ]
President Joe Biden has now spent his first 10 days in office. All told, it's been fairly boring. Which is exactly what millions of Americans voted him into office to achieve. Journalists everywhere are writing absolute paeans to boredom. Throughout the land, a joyous cry is raised: "Let boredom ring!" Well, OK, that may be overstating it a tiny bit. But not by much.
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