Senate
May 18, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Back from the treatment for depression that followed on his stroke, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman pretends he is capable of doing his job. Earlier this week Fetterman questioned Silicon Valley Bank executive Greg Becker during a Senate Banking Committee hearing about SVB’s March collapse. Steve Hayward posted this pathetic video clip. This is just sad. pic.twitter.com/q1NKwUWcMR — Clown World ™ 🤡 (@ClownWorld_) May 16, 2023 See if you can follow
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May 5, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is a fool. He nevertheless thinks extremely highly of himself. His vanity is only one component of his clown show. To borrow a line from Bob Dylan’s “Idiot Wind,” it’s a wonder he still knows how to breathe. Heritage Foundation scholar Diana Furchtgott-Roth contributed the latest episode in Whitehouse’s long-running Looney Tunes saga when she testified on Wednesday before the Senate Budget Committee on “the real price
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February 23, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Students of ancient history may recall that the campaign of then Democrat Senate candidate John Fetterman released two letters from physicians who vouched for Fetterman’s fitness to serve following the stroke he suffered last year just before the Pennsylvania primary. The first such letter was released on June 3 under the signature of Dr. Ramesh Chandra. The second such letter was released just before the general election in mid-October under
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February 17, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I was extremely disappointed when Dr. Oz won the 2022 Pennsylvania Senate GOP primary over David McCormick — by 900 hundred votes out of nearly 900,000 cast, with the invaluable support of Donald Trump. I was inspired to express my disgust by adapting the famous translation of one of the Roman poet Martial’s epigrams to fit the occasion when McCormick conceded on June 3. What a farce. Pennsylvania conducted its
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February 16, 2023 — John Hinderaker
It wasn’t a great day for news. Here are a few of the lowlights: * Feckless Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg blamed Donald Trump for the East Palestine train derailment and consequent chemical spill: We’re constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation (like the braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015), but we are using the powers we
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January 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Matt Taibbi posted two more Twitter Files threads yesterday afternoon. They are the eleventh and twelfth such threads posted by the journalists to whom Elon Musk has opened the files of old Twitter. Taibbi has taken the lead in documenting The eleventh thread includes 33 tweets that can be accessed via the first (below). 1.THREAD: The Twitter FilesHow Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In — Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3,
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December 21, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Seeking to provide a perspective other that might contribute to an understanding of the massive omnibus spending bill Congress is about to pass, I asked a knowledgeable source about the dynamics underlying Republican support for it. This is what I understand to be the Republican case for the bill on the Senate side. I pass it on for the sake of those trying to gain some perspective on what we
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December 9, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Politico’s Burgess Everett reports this morning that Senator Kyrsten Sinema is leaving the Democratic Party, changing her party affiliation to independent. In so doing, she is “delivering a jolt to Democrats’ narrow majority and Washington along with it.” Reading Everett’s account of his interview with Sinema, I can’t figure what difference her departure from the Dems will make: In a 45-minute interview, the first-term senator told POLITICO that she will
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December 7, 2022 — Scott Johnson
This is a postscript to my November 9 installment of “After last night” on this year’s midterms. • In a perfect coda to the disappointing outcome of the 2022 midterm elections, Raphael Warnock won reelection to the Senate from Georgia last night. He did it by taking 51.4 percent of the vote in his runoff against Herschel Walker for a full six-year term. Walker fell about 100,000 votes short out
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November 17, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Students of ancient history may recall that FBI Director Christopher Wray wriggled away from the Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing this past August 4 when he claimed he had a flight to catch. It turned out that the flight was on the Gulfstream jet dedicated to the Director’s use and he was headed off on vacation. Senator Josh Hawley followed up on Wray’s wriggle today at a hearing before the
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November 17, 2022 — Scott Johnson
When Dr. Oz narrowly won the Pennsylvania Republican primary — by fewer than 1,000 votes — I lamented the result in “Oz versus Fetterman.” I blamed Trump for an endorsement that, given the closeness of the race, must have pushed Oz over the top. I thought former Trump Treasury Under Secretary David McCormick, Oz’s opponent in the primary, made for a far better candidate against John Fetterman in Pennsylvania’s general
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November 13, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The Arizona and Nevada Senate races have been called for Democratic incumbents Mark Kelly and Catherine Cortez Masto, respectively. With only the Georgia Senate runoff election outstanding, the Democrats appear to have maintained their 50-seat majority in the Senate (with Vice President Harris breaking ties). Democrats can enhance their majority to 51-49 with a victory in the Georgia runoff or maintain the status quo with a loss. The AP’s story
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November 10, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I have been following Jon Ralston’s postelection Twitter updates on the outstanding votes and related results in Nevada’s Senate race. In my morning-after comments on the midterms, I assumed that Blake Masters would lose in Arizona and hoped that Adam Laxalt would pull it out in Nevada. Ralston is hostile to Laxalt and pulling for incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, but he is an expert on Nevada politics. Take his
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November 10, 2022 — Scott Johnson
In a perfect coda to the midterm elections, MSNBC is touting Senator-elect John Fetterman — his doctor said he was better, man — to run for president. It is an ingenious attempt to build a seamless transition from President Biden to the Democratic future. Fetterman should indeed be the face of the Democratic Party, or at least its neck. The future beckons. The possibilities are limitless. Unfortunately, we have plenty
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November 6, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Brain-damaged Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate brought in the big guns, if I may use that term, to whip up turnout in their strongholds yesterday. When I say Fetterman is brain-damaged, that is a statement of fact. When I say “big guns,” that is a metaphor. The flags behind Fetterman fell as he introduced his biggest gun. Some choose to see the perfect timing of the flags falling as a metaphor.
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November 6, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I’ve been serving up tea leaves in advance of the midterm elections this week. I am not an optimist by nature, prepared to be disappointed, do not believe in predictions, and hope only to be a fair broker of the most reliable polls and information I can find. I take my motto from George Eliot’s narrator in Middlemarch: “Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous.” However, I
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November 4, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I think this ad posted by the Fetterman campaign may be the worst of the cycle this year. You be the judge. It seems to me that everything about it is wrong. Thinking of Fetterman’s clothes — he throws a shirt to the grateful kid — is gross. He is gross. The ad takes off on the 1979 Coca-Cola ad featuring the Steelers’ Mean Joe Greene. This ad worked. They
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