Posts Tagged ‘Fetterman’

If Dianne Feinstein is suffering from cognitive decline and is unfit to serve, then why she still a senator?

Posted: January 29, 2023 by John Ruberry in congress, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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Feinstein official Senate photo, retrieved from her website on January 29, 2023

By John Ruberry

Nearly overlooked earlier this month because of the drawn-out vote for speaker of the House was the breaking of seven decades of precedent in the upper chamber of Congress in the election for largely ceremonial post of president pro tempore of the Senate. Largely ceremonial only up to a point, that is. The holder of that position is third-in-line in presidential succession. Every president pro tempore elected since 1949 had been the longest-serving senator from the majority party. The dean of the Senate is 89-year-old Dianne Feinstein, she has been representing California since 1992. But Patty Murray of Washington, who is a relatively spry 72, was elected president pro tempore, which ups her salary a bit and earns her a security detail.

Feinstein reportedly declined to run for president pro tempore.

Concerns about Feinstein’s mental acuity go back to 2020, when she praised then-Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsay Graham (R-SC) when the confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett concluded. “This has been one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in,” she told Graham before hugging him, “I want to thank you for your fairness.” 

Personally, I think Graham did a decent job during those hearings, but Feinstein overlooked–or should I say she couldn’t remember–that during the Donald Trump presidency it was the duty, in the eyes of the Democrats’ hard-left base, for every Democratic member of Congress to RESIST Trump and the Republicans.

Shortly afterwards, Feinstein stepped down as the ranking Democrat of the Judiciary Committee.

Last spring, her hometown newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, spoke to members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as ex-Feinstein staffers, about her mental state. And all of them, anonymously, told the Chronicle that because of memory issues, Feinstein appears unable to serve as senator.

More bluntly, in my words, it looks like Feinstein can’t do her job.

“I have worked with her for a long time and long enough to know what she was like just a few years ago: always in command, always in charge, on top of the details, basically couldn’t resist a conversation where she was driving some bill or some idea. All of that is gone,” a California House Dem admitted to the Chronicle about Feinstein. “She was an intellectual and political force not that long ago, and that’s why my encounter with her was so jarring. Because there was just no trace of that.” 

The same article offered up this damning quote, “There’s a joke on the Hill, we’ve got a great junior senator in Alex Padilla and an experienced staff in Feinstein’s office,” a former staffer said.

Last year the New York Times described an experience that will be familiar to anyone who has witnessed a friend or relative suffering from cognitive decline.

One Democratic lawmaker who had an extended encounter with Ms. Feinstein in February said in an interview that the experience was akin to acting as a caregiver for a person in need of constant assistance. The lawmaker recalled having to reintroduce themself to the senator multiple times, helping her locate her purse repeatedly and answering the same set of basic, small-talk questions over and over again.

Tellingly, a visit to Feinstein’s Senate website offers up a photo of her that appears to be a couple of decades old. That’s the pic you see in this entry. Click here for a more recent photograph.

This month, two Democratic southern California members of the House, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff, announced they are running for Feinstein’s seat–her term expires in 2025. Schiff, who repeatedly lied about having evidence proving Trump-Russia collusion, claims he informed Feinstein of his intentions. Believe that if you want to. 

Other candidates are expected to declare their candidacy. Feinstein hasn’t said anything yet, but she’s expected to announce that she will not be running for reelection. 

Clearly, Feinstein should have resigned for health reasons at least three years ago. 

One way to minimize the chances of having senators–and House members–suffering from cognitive decline is to enact congressional term limits, even though that may mean amending the Constitution. Besides, serving in Congress should be a highlight of someone’s career–not the entire career.

Feinstein’s sad situation is not unique in Washington. Two Republicans who served with Feinstein, Strom Thurmond, who ended his 48 years in the Senate at 100, and Thad Cochran, who resigned after 39 years in the Senate, suffered cognitive challenges late in their careers, as well as one Democrat, Robert Byrd–he died in office when he was 92.

For five months in 2001, at the age of 98, Thurmond was president pro tempore. And when Byrd died, he was president pro tempore of the Senate. Hey, hats off to the Democrats for bucking tradition by electing Murray over Feinstein for that post.

Besides congressional term limits, America also needs smarter voters. Although by all accounts Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is a healthy 89-year-old man. Last year he was just elected to his eighth term. Grassley is a former president pro-tempore.

Having wiser and less selfish members of Congress is probably too much to hope for.

Mental issues can burden younger persons too.

In Pennsylvania, 53-year-old Democrat John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke last year, successfully ran out the clock in his successful Senate election, despite speaking struggles in his few public appearances and a disastrous debate performance. 

Joe Biden turned 80 last year and he’s expected to run for reelection. Biden has had many mental miscues in his two years at president. But that’s a problem well worth another discussion.

Please don’t call me ageist. If heart ailments, cancer, accidents, or infectious diseases don’t conquer me first, I am certain that one day I will suffer from cognitive issues. 

UPDATE February 14: Today Feinstein announced that she won’t seek reelection. Call me ableist, agist, or whatever. But Feinstein should have quit at least two years ago. She can still resign.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

At least overconfidence won’t be a problem for the GOP in 2024 as it was after the two Red Wave elections–and other thoughts

Posted: November 13, 2022 by John Ruberry in congress, culture, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

I was around for the 1994 and the 2010 Red Wave elections. And for the most part, they were pretty awesome, particularly the first one, when the Republican Party bulldozed the Democrats and captured the Senate after eight years of Democrat control, as well as the House of Representatives, after a record 52-year reign by the Dems. And while the GOP didn’t win the Senate in 2010, the Republicans gained an astounding 63 House seats in what is now known as the Tea Party election. 

After both midterms, conservatives salivated at the prospect of the next presidential election. In 1992, Bill Clinton was victorious, it was believed, because George H.W. Bush ran a lackluster campaign–that was true–and votes for third-party candidate Ross Perot siphoned enough support from the GOP conservative base to elect the Democrat. In 2008, the feeling was that John McCain never had a chance against Barack Obama after the Great Recession market crash two months before Election Day. But McCain ran a lackluster campaign too. 

Overconfidence, bordering on hubris, kicked in for the GOP after those Red Waves.

As of this writing there will be a Democrat majority in the Senate in the next Congress, and maybe, a razor-thin Republican majority in the House. 

Bubba had a come-to-Jesus moment–having Dick Morris in his camp helped–and Clinton after the ’94 midterms pivoted to the center by declaring, “The era of big government is over.” The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, widely-known as the Welfare Reform Bill, offered tangible proof.

After what Obama deemed “a shellacking” in 2010, Obama, as he does best, talked a good game–but he didn’t pivot. With no hope of getting unpopular legislation, such as cap-and-trade passed by the new GOP House, he channeled his charisma to win in 2012–as conservatives seethed. And ObamaCare didn’t go into effect until 2013.

Besides over-confidence hindering their White House chances, Republicans nominated country club-flavor Republicans, Bob Dole and Mitt Romney, for president in 1996 and 2012, respectively. In essence, their campaign was, “I’m not the other guy.” Yawn.

As of this writing there will be a Democrat majority in the Senate in the next Congress, and maybe, a razor-thin Republican majority in the House. 

Election denial.

It’s time for the GOP to look at what went wrong this year, starting with election-denial. As I wrote in March, Joe Biden versus Donald Trump was not a free and fair election. Big Tech and media meddling in regard to suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, in my opinion, was the foremost reason. Richard M. Nixon was the victim of a suspicious presidential election tally in 1960. I was a child in 1968 and 1972, but I don’t recall reading about Nixon mentioning the 1960 race at all during his ’68 or ’72 successful presidential runs.

Deal with it. The Dems won in 2020 and we lost. Move on. If Trump runs in 2024, that needs to be his message. Most of the candidates in close races who said that Biden stole the election from Trump in 2020 were defeated. Election denial is toxic for Republicans.

The big winner in the midterms was Florida governor Ron DeSantis. He’s not an election denier and he has a solid list of accomplishments to point to after four years in office.

The new election playing field.

I loathe mail-in voting, “election season” instead of Election Day, and ballot drop-boxes. But these things aren’t going away. To prevail, Republicans have to adapt and find ways to perform better on the new playing field. Mail-in voting is a good place to start. Increasingly, the GOP is the party of private sector jobholders. Let’s say you’re a construction worker raising a family who is told by his boss, “Hey, I need you at this worksite tomorrow in Nebraska–it pays well.” But that worker hasn’t voted yet and Election Day is two days away. Meanwhile, in Blue Illinois, Election Day is a holiday for government workers.

What if it snows on Election Day? That happened in a Republican area in Nevada last Tuesday.

Shortly before Election Day in 2016, my mother was hospitalized. She had voted in every presidential election since 1956, but mom wasn’t able to vote for Trump, much to her disappointment. We need to reach out to seniors and, gently of course, convince them to utilize mail-in or early voting. 

Republicans need to build on its increasing support among Hispanics and reach out to Asians. The GOP is the party of law and order. However, the media wing of the Democratic Party labels the phrase “law and order” as racist. So Republicans need to rebrand and become, let’s say, the “safety and security” party. Safety and security is an appeal that will resonate among all racial groups.

Tribalism.

If the increasingly frail and mentally feeble Joe Biden runs for reelection and wins renomination–the Democrats won’t have a strong campaigner like Clinton or Obama on the top of the ticket in ’24. And Biden has already said that he won’t pivot, as Bill Clinton did, to the center now that the midterms have passed.

Woo-hoo! We’re gonna win!

Slow down there, cowboy.

Republicans face disaster if they underestimate the support Biden will enjoy from the tribalist base of the Democrats. That tribe will vote every candidate who has a “D” next to their name. In the Chicago area, I live among millions of these people. They might wise up one day. Maybe they won’t. But as Dan Bongino said numerous times in the last week, “Things are just not bad enough yet for a lot of people to wake up from the Kool-Aid slumber.”

And it’s not just Illinois that is afflicted by Dem tribalism. Pennsylvanians chose a cognitively challenged far-left US Senate candidate, John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke this spring, over a mentally nimble Republican candidate, Dr. Mehmet Oz. True, Oz could have run a better campaign. 

Ronald Reagan, in his 1984 landslide win over Walter Mondale, won 49 states. But in the popular vote–yeah, I know, the Electoral College declares the victor–Mondale still collected more than 40 percent. In 2024, even if Biden is in worse physical and mental shape than Fetterman is, he’ll do much better, courtesy of tribalism, than Mondale did, in both the Electoral College and the popular vote.

Fetterman, if by some other-worldly convergence ends up as the Democrat nominee for president in 2024, could match Mondale’s popular vote percentage. I am dead serious about that. Tribalism is a tough nut to crack.

There is much to think about and much to do for the Republican Party. But at least the GOP won’t be overconfident in 2024. That might be the best news out of this Red Ripple election.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Solid support by Democrats for Biden and Fetterman betrays their biggest fault–their causes are more important than good results

Posted: October 30, 2022 by John Ruberry in congress, culture, elections, media, News/opinion, politics
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By John Ruberry

The warning signs have been there for many weeks. Shortly before winning the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, John Fetterman had a stroke. How severe was the stroke? We don’t know, because Fetterman, who appears to be morbidly obese, hasn’t released his medical records. 

But he’s a solid leftist Democrat, and that’s all that his party leadership and the people working on his campaign need to know. But can Fetterman perform the job as senator?

His brief public appearances have been filled with gaffes and non-sensical statements, such as this one, made during an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, in response to this question, “I just wanted to check in and see how you’re doing?” Fetterman’s response was, “I’m doing fantastic, it’s not about kicking balls in the authority or anything.” Earlier this month Fox News reported that since his stroke, Fetterman had participated just four interviews with a national media outlet-all with MSNBC. Possibly in reaction to that story, Fetterman reached out to NBC. Dasha Burns interviewed him–and the candidate was aided by a teleprompter. As part of her report, Burns said that Fetterman had issues engaging in “small talk” prior to their interview. There was no teleprompter until the cameras were switched on. 

The left-wing Twitter blue-check media army attacked Burns; Fetterman’s wife said that she should face “consequences” for doing her job, which in this case was providing information to Pennsylvania voters so they can make an intelligent choice on who to vote for in the Senate race.

Fetterman’s campaign says as a result of the candidate’s stroke–oh, once again, where are those medical records?–he suffers from auditory processing challenges. And if Fetterman doesn’t improve, how will he be able to understand what is going on in a Senate committee hearing?

Last week’s sole debate between Fetterman and his Republican opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, was a debacle for the Democrat. 

“If this had been a boxing match,” Laura Ingraham said of the debate on her Fox News show, “the referee would have called this in the first sixty seconds.” Fetterman’s opening remark was, “Hi, good night, everyone.” Like his other post-stroke campaign appearances, the debate with Oz was another gaffe-fest for the Democrat. Fetterman was particularly ghastly when trying to explain his position on fracking. His campaign blamed the closed captioning on the candidate’s teleprompter. The network that broadcast debate strongly dismissed that complaint.

But to leftists, none of this stuff matters. That’s because Fetterman is “right” on all of the issues, well, maybe not fracking anymore. Maybe. He’ll vote “correctly,” the leftists believe, presumably with the help of his teleprompter, on the Senate floor. After all, under the protection of pandemic restrictions–they were overblown in my opinion, but I want to stay on topic–a frail and obviously mentally feeble Joe Biden was able to win the presidency while hiding in the basement of his Delaware home. 

If the basement bunker tactic worked for Biden, leftists probably believe, it can work for Fetterman too. 

But we are in the middle of a disastrous presidency, which includes a humiliating military defeat, high inflation, and a likely recession.

Back to Pennsylvania and Fetterman: If it were Dr. Oz who had suffered a stroke, state party leaders, and possibly his campaign staff, would call for, perhaps quietly, Oz to step aside in time for a replacement candidate to appear on the general election ballot. While conservatives of course have core principles, our side consists of many more pragmatists. That’s how we roll. For instance, how many conservatives do you find in academia? Or in the arts? The Democrats are the party of noble intentions. The GOP is the party of good results.

And Dems continue to hammer away on unworkable and unpopular polices, such as attacking fossil fuels, confronting inflation with even more government spending, and conducting catch-and-release so-called prosecution of criminals. Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner is one of the worst proponents of such prosecutorial malpractice.

Which means the hardcore support by the left for John Fetterman makes sense. A twisted sense, that is.

When you vote in this year’s general election–vote for pragmatism. Vote Republican.

As for you Pennsylvania voters–you need to say “good night” to Fetterman.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

The fraud of John Fetterman

Posted: September 13, 2022 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

John Fetterman, the Democrat nominee for U.S. senator in Pennsylvania, is one of the biggest fakes to seek political office.

At 53, he’s basically never held a paying job outside of government, owing mainly to his family’s wealth. 

Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, to an insurance executive and his wife, Fetterman got a public policy degree from Harvard and traveled more than 250 miles west to the small town of Braddock, where he worked as a member of AmeriCorps, the domestic version of the Peace Corps.

Fetterman, the carpetbagger from eastern Pennsylvania, had found his niche in the western part of the state.

In 2005, he ran for mayor when the town had 3,000 souls, about two-thirds of whom were black, promising to clean up crime and make the economy better. Amazingly, he won the race by one vote: 149-148. Unsurprisingly, some election day shenanigans allowed three people to cast ballots who had been turned away at the polls. See https://www.post-gazette.com/local/east/2005/06/09/One-provisional-ballot-decides-Braddock-mayor-s-race-It-s-Fetterman/stories/200506090277

For whatever reason, Fetterman became a media and elite darling despite his tattoos, hoodie and shorts, and excess pounds. 

The Guardian described John Fetterman as the “coolest mayor” in the country. The New York Times told its readers that Fetterman had “turned the busted town of Braddock, PA, into a national symbol of hope, hard work and authentic blue jeans.

Fetterman was feted at The Aspen Institute and with a TED talk.

As Tucker Carlson put it: “It’s so perfect: homesteading, organic vegetables, art installations, and also, again, inevitably a heaping dose of climate theology, all imported from Harvard. Fetterman imposed on a town with no jobs, carbon caps on Braddock, Pennsylvania, and he claimed these carbon caps would somehow — he never explained how — bring more manufacturing jobs back. He called this initiative “Carbon Caps = Hard Hats.” So expensive, unreliable energy will mean more manufacturing jobs, and yet somehow no one laughed at him, so John Fetterman kept going.” 

During his 14 years as mayor, he rarely attended town council meetings and argued incessantly with the black leadership of Braddock.

In 2013, Fetterman said he heard a loud sound, which he thought was gunfire. He grabbed a shotgun and followed a jogger, who was black, and confronted him. The jogger said Fetterman pointed the shotgun at his chest and face. No charges were filed, and no apology was made.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is9AD2PIKMk

Imagine what would have happened if a Republican running for ANY political office did such a thing?

In 14 years as mayor, Fetterman saw nearly half of the people leave. Crime and the economy aren’t any better. 

But the Democrats elected him as lieutenant governor in 2019 and nominated him for U.S. Senate. 

Fetterman’s stands on the issues are to the left of Bernie Sanders, whom he endorsed for president. Fetterman makes AOC seem sane!

I can only hope that the voters of Pennsylvania finally see through his facade and media hype to return him as an ordinary citizen to live out his years in Braddock or Aspen.