Clothes and the Man

Not since Davy Crockett took to the House floor in Congress has a member of the national legislature been dress-shamed like U.S. Senator John Fetterman, who was quick to take advantage of new relaxed dress codes in the Senate that no longer require suits and ties for men or formal office wear for women in the Senate floor.  Fetterman even took over presiding over the Senate floor in an outfit (below) that suggested he was going to the convenience store or going out to mow the lawn.

It was Senator Charles Schumer, the Senate's current Democratic and majority leader, who relaxed the dress codes, much to the opposition of Republicans and to those who have taste (strange bedfellows, for sure).  Schumer seems to be begging to be excoriated by MAGA Republicans for being part of a Radical Left plot to destroy dress standards to trivialize and cheapen the august nature of Congress and define deviancy down.  

Well, I agree that members of Congress should wear formal business attire when conducting the nation's business (provided they ever get around to actually doing that).  On the House or Senate floor, you should look presentable and dignified and so a little respect for your constituents. lest your colleagues think your constituents, like you, are too lazy to keep a suit coat on (yes, Jim Jordan, I'm talking about you!)   

MAGA Republicans will have a case for blaming so-called radical leftists and so-called progressives for trying to undermine standards of dress and appearance, as then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went into a direction not unlike Schumer's You will recall that Pelosi supported legislation that would have barred white male corporate officers from enforcing hairstyle rules that forbid cornrows and dreadlocks (or unorthodox hair-dye jobs) because they discriminate against people of color, and that bill was thankfully never passed. As I said in a post about this joke of a piece of legislation, unconventional hairstyles look inappropriate in the workplace, and if you take a job with a private employer, you're working for the man, and you have to follow the man's rules at the workplace just like members of Congress ought to follow a sense of decorum,  and adopt a formal look for the greater group.  

But some people are still uncool about that.  I mentioned earlier that I was run off the social media platform formerly known as Twitter for making unfavorable comments about someone's selfie.  Well, I'm more comfortable to explain the circumstances for leaving the platform in full detail now.  That someone was black Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Tia Mitchell, and the comment I made was about her cornrowed hair.  I left a comment saying I thought she looked better without her hair cornrowed.  That's when all of these black Twitter users and a few white female liberals bashed me like an automated car slamming crash test dummies into the wall.  I had to block a few of them to make them stop harassing me.  

Some of their comments were so nasty and incendiary, including some anti-Caucasian and misandric tropes, but nothing like Tia Mitchell's own response, as she said she normally didn't pay attention to comments of such "foolishness" like my own comment but chose to highlight what I said to make an example of my white male intolerance.  As I said before when I was trying not to name names, I wrote an apology with an explanation to Tia Mitchell and decided to wait until I got an acceptance or at least an acknowledgment of my apology.  Then I was going to quit the platform.  After a few hours, I went back on the platform only to find  more incoming insults.  That's when I decided to quit the platform immediately.  I didn't want to wait for a reply from Tia Mitchell herself.

As for any respect I had for Tia Mitchell as a journalist, well, I've since lost it.  I don't even watch CNN's "Inside Politics" anymore because I know she is a frequent panelist on it and I don't want to even be reminded of her anymore.

Speaking of journalism, I have a public meeting to cover tonight. As always, I'm covering it virtually, from home - so I can dress down.

And I don't have to worry about my hair being combed. 😝 

John Fetterman Will Be Alright

Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) was recently in the hospital for what turned out to be exhaustion, not another stroke as some had feared.  Revelations that his stroke in 2022 left him hard of hearing - so hard, he hears voice as being like muffled brass instruments, not unlike the adult speech in "Peanuts" television specials - led to some rather nasty memes depicting Fetterman as Charlie Brown, complete with a yellow shirt with a black zigzag stripe.

Fetterman recently returned to the hospital - this time for treatment of clinical depression, which some conservatives on social media are likely to mock.  Yeah?  Well, listen, if you had a stroke, if you came from a dirt-poor town like Braddock, Pennsylvania, and if you were continuously disparaged by your political opponents, you'd  be clinically depressed too.  

The really cool thing is that Fetterman has gotten bipartisan support form his fellow senators in his time of trouble, and he has been celebrated for his courage to admit that he has a problem and is willing to seek treatment in public to let people know that it's okay . . . not to be okay.

I know that Senator Fetterman is going to get better and get the care he needs.  He's not alright now . . . but he will be. 

2022 Midterms - The Aftermath

There are many takeaways from the 2022 midterms, which surprised me by how they turned out - and did not turn out:

Red Puddle: The red wave I and many others feared didn't materialize.  Democrats have so far preserved most of their caucus in the House and may yet keep the majority, but Republicans are closer to grabbing it.

Roe, Roe Roe the Vote: Abortion turned out to be as big a deal as it was originally expected to be.  That's because the polls didn't take first-time voters into account, and they didn't factor into prognostications of the midterms because they hadn't voted before and therefore hadn't been part of past voting trends.  Abortion, however, wasn't strong enough to flip Republican seats in the Senate to the Democrats . . . except for one.   

Fettermania!  John Fetterman (below) defeated Dr. Mehmet Oz for returning Republican Senator Pat Toomey's U.S. Senate seat.  The same pundits who doubted Fetterman's strategy and his post-stroke viability and spoke embarrassingly of his debate performance now say the Fetterman ran a great campaign by speaking plainly and honestly on the issues, being comfortable in his own skin (and his own sweatpants), and connecting with working-class voters.  Fetterman is the first Democrat to win this Senate seat since 1962, when Richard Nixon held his famous "Last Press Conference" after being rejected in a gubernatorial election in California.  Fetterman did have to make one sacrifice; now that he's going to be a U.S. Senator, he needs a suit and a tailor.

Money Talks, But It Can't Sing and Dance: And it can't buy you love, either.  After all of the big bucks spent on the 2022 midterms - the most expensive misterm election campaign ever (at least until 2026, most likely) - the results have left Congress pretty much the same way as it was before.     

WOLVERINES!: The Democrats flipped the Michigan state legislature while holding on to the governorship, the Attorney General's office and the secretary of state's office.  Michigan turned so blue that when you see it on a political map, you won't know where the state ends and where the Great Lakes begin.

RIP Florida Democrats:  How does a state Democratic Party get as their opponents in the 2022 gubernatorial and U.S. Senate elections a pair of scumbags like Marco Rubio, who proposes repealing the prescription drug-price control law, and Ron DeSantis, who spends half of his time trying to censor teachers and deny the existence of gays - and then blow both elections? Six-letter word for Florida Democratic Party leadership, rhymes with "Cupid" . . .

Crist Crossed Out: The attempts of Democrats at winning back the governorship of Florida go like this - nominate a Democratic rising star, lose to the Republican candidate, blackball the former rising star; nominate Charlie Crist four years later, lose to the incumbent Republican; nominate another Democratic rising star, lose to the Republican candidate, blackball the former rising star; nominate Charlie Crist four years later, lose to the incumbent Republican . . . I have a feeling that the Democrats in Florida may change their strategy by forfeiting 2026 so they can lose the Florida governorship in 2030.  Just don't expect a third Charlie Crist Democratic gubernatorial candidacy - he lost to DeSantis by twenty points.  Even Florida Democrats aren't that crazy! It would be like repeatedly sending Debbie Wasserman Schultz back to the House after she screwed up the 2016 presidential election . . . 

Okay, bad example!

Democracy Is Safe . . .  For now, anyway.  The high voter turnout was inspiring at a time when many people thought Americans no longer cares about saving democracy, but some election deniers won their own elections - and Kari Lake may yet win the governorship of Arizona.

They'll be back.

And so will I, to focus on a couple of other elections and related issues more closely.              

Fetterman Does The Oz

John Fetterman bombed completely in his one and only debate with Dr. Mehmet Oz in the U.S. Senate election campaign in Pennsylvania.  Or so you might think after reading headlines like this one from the Associated Press:

Fetterman struggles in Senate debate against Oz after stroke

Or how about this one from the New York Times?

Fetterman’s Debate Showing Raises Democratic Anxieties in Senate Battle 

Here's one from Politico! 

Fetterman’s debate performance prompts Democratic handwringing 

And from NBC News . . .

Fetterman's debate performance has Democrats on edge in crucial Pennsylvania Senate race 

Really!

Listen, people . . . Democrats are worry-warts by nature.  You'd be, too, if your party kept losing one or both houses of Congress two years into the administration of a President of your party.  You'd certainly be nervous if the opposition party nominated a telegenic celebrity to run against your guy.  And you'd certainly wring your hands knowing your best issues are the issues voters care about the least.   

To play up Fetterman's struggles in Tuesday night is to suggest that no one knew that Fetterman was recovering from a stroke.  He made it clear that no one should expect him to do as well as Dr. Oz because of what he called "the elephant in the room" - not Oz's wife but the issue of his health, which Fetterman's doctor - unlike Oz, a practicing doctor - says is good and improving every day.   So they poor guy flubbed a bit on the fracking issues.  Big deal.

As for Oz, who owns nearly a dozen homes and none of them in Pennsylvania (a few of them are in Turkey), he showed about as much intelligence about abortion as he does toward diet supplements. He proposed that abortion rights should not be decided on by the federal government by "women, their doctors, and local political leaders" . . . as if local political leaders had anything resembling the medical expertise Oz allegedly has.

Oh yeah, if Fetterman is finished, why did he rake in half a million bucks after the debate?

Chill out, Dems, you should do just fine in Pennsylvania.

It's states like Nevada and Georgia, where Democrats actually hold those seats up for election as opposed to the open GOP-held seat in Pennsylvania, that you should worry about!

(P.S. I was only kidding about Oz's wife Lisa, I'm sure she's a lovely person.)