Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.)
rejected Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s claim of a “genocide” in Gaza
and also called the Georgia Republican “crazy pants.”
“Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene referred to what’s happening as effectively a genocide. I mean, Republicans seem to start —” a reporter with Scripps News said when talking to Fetterman in a clip posted to the social platform X Wednesday.
“I [honestly] don’t care what crazy pants thinks,” Fetterman replied. “And why is that news and her views on that right now?”
“It’s not a genocide, you know, that’s just not the case. And she’s
entitled to her opinion, but I’m entitled to not really care what her
views on that is,” he added later.
Of course I completely agree, Senator, with your characterization of Representative Greene as "crazy pants" but I have to ask you about your characterization of Gaza.
Amnesty International, in December of 2024 concluded:
Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to
conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide
against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the organization said
in a landmark new report published today.
The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents
how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly
Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has
unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly,
continuously and with total impunity.
Two leading human rights organisations based in Israel,
B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, say Israel is committing
genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the country’s western allies
have a legal and moral duty to stop it.
In reports published on Monday, the two groups said Israel had targeted civilians in Gaza
only because of their identity as Palestinians over nearly two years of
war, causing severe and in some cases irreparable damage to Palestinian
society.
After reviewing the facts established by independent human rights
monitors, journalists, and United Nations agencies, we conclude that
Israel’s actions in and regarding Gaza since October 7, 2023, violate
the Genocide Convention. Specifically, Israel has committed genocidal
acts of killing, causing serious harm to, and inflicting conditions of
life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians
in Gaza, a protected group that forms a substantial part of the
Palestinian people.
Given all the death and destruction and famine visited on Gaza by Israel, if this isn't genocide, then what is it? How do you justify it? Or defend it?
I'll await your answer, Senator.
As always, I'll post here whatever you send as a response.
I got a new letter from the office of US Senator Dave McCormick recently.
Here is the text:
Thank you for contacting me and sharing your thoughts on issues
important to you. Your feedback is important to me as we work together
to shape policies that benefit Pennsylvania and our country.
As the 54th U.S. Senator elected from Pennsylvania, I am honored to
represent more than 13 million of our fellow citizens. I am committed to
working with my Senate colleagues to reduce the cost of living, secure
the border, unleash our nation’s energy resources, restore American
strength on the global stage, and protect the American Dream for future
generations. To do my job, I rely on input from constituents.
Since I was sworn in, I have worked diligently to respond to all the letters and calls from my constituents.
In addition, I host regular telephone town halls, where constituents
can hear directly from me and ask questions. My next tele-town hall is
scheduled for July 30 at 7:00 PM. You can click here
to reserve your spot.
Whenever the Senate is not in session, I prioritize being in
Pennsylvania to meet with community leaders, tour small businesses, and
engage with constituents. My team is also out in the field every day
talking to Pennsylvanians.
To visit or connect with one of my seven Pennsylvania-based offices
or to stay updated on future town halls, please visit my website at www.mccormick.senate.gov
. It is a privilege to serve our great Commonwealth in the United
States Senate. I appreciate having the benefit of your comments.
Obviously, he's not responding to a particular blogpost/letter of mine. He's just advertising his next "telephone town hall" as you can see in his 4th paragraph.
Be sure to click the link to "reserve your spot."
And that the thing with these telephone town halls. My understanding is that the questions are screened before the host hears them. It's not like a real town hall where constituents show up and wait on line at a microphone to ask the host a question.
There's simply no way of knowing whether your question will be screened out during the meeting.
It's not as valuable as a face to face discussion. Don't think it will ever be.
It's not a real discussion of the issues. It's a PR stunt.
I am a resident of Pennsylvania and a constituent of yours and I'd like you
to answer a question or two.
Recently the DOJ interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell, now imprisoned on charges of sex trafficking, regarding what she knew about the financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Critics have cried foul that the DOJ official interviewing Maxwell was
Blanche, rather than a non-political prosecutor who has been involved in
the case who would have much more expertise. Not only is Blanche a top
political appointee of Trump’s; he’s also his formal personal lawyer.
“The conflict of interest is glaring,” Senate Minority
Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Thursday on X. “It stinks of high
corruption.”
What’s more, Blanche appeared on a podcast last year with [Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar] Markus andlabeled him a “friend.”
At
the meeting, [Blanche] will have to walk a careful line, balancing his current
responsibility to pursue the public good by getting what he can out of
Ms. Maxwell against his erstwhile responsibility to defend Mr. Trump
against any possibly embarrassing information that she might eventually
provide.
Legal
ethics experts said that Mr. Blanche was likely not affected by a
formal conflict of interest by negotiating with Ms. Maxwell as both a
top official of the Justice Department and the former lawyer of someone
who, in theory, could be implicated by her statements. Still, they said,
his involvement in the talks created a murky situation rife with
potential pitfalls and complexities.
“This
ought to be handled by someone who is disinterested in the results
because if they are not, then they can’t be trusted to do what’s in the
public’s interest,” said Bruce Green, who teaches legal ethics at
Fordham Law School in New York. “The problem with Blanche is that he is
likely not disinterested not only because he used to be Trump’s lawyer,
but because Trump put him in his high office in the Justice Department.”
Does any of this concern you, Senator? Wouldn't it all be solved by releasing all the Epstein files?
I'll await your answer, Senator.
As always, whatever answer I get from the Senator (more likely, his office) I'll post here.
[UPDATED to include a link and to identify Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus.]
I am a resident of Pennsylvania and a constituent of yours and I'd like you
to answer a question or two.
I'd like to ask you about Gaza. First let me say that the events of October 7, 2023 were horrific and that the State of Israel has every right to defend itself.
More than 100 aid agencies and rights
groups, including Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders, warned
on Wednesday that “mass starvation” was spreading across Gaza, adding to
calls for Israel to lift restrictions on humanitarian aid to the
besieged enclave.
The joint statement
is the latest attempt to draw attention to a growing hunger crisis in
Gaza. It was released after the European Union and at least 28 governments,
including Israeli allies like Britain, France and Canada, on Monday
condemned the “drip feeding of aid” and said that civilian suffering had
“reached new depths.”
Doctors Without Borders in Gaza has reported
a “sharp and unprecedented rise in acute malnutrition.” Adults
frequently collapse from hunger, the aid groups said in their statement,
adding that stockpiles of food and other supplies warehoused outside
the territory were being prevented from reaching people in need.
[K]ey facts are clear. Hamas committed a
series of war crimes in the attacks it launched on 7 October, killing
1,200 people, mainly Israeli civilians. Hamas took 251 hostages, of
which perhaps 20 who are still being held inside Gaza are believed to be
alive.
And there is clear evidence that Israel has committed a series of war crimes since then.
Israel's
list includes the starvation of Gaza's civilians, the failure to
protect them during military operations in which Israeli forces killed
tens of thousands of innocents, and the wanton destruction of entire
towns in a manner that is not proportionate to the military risk Israel
faces.
Senator, do you think that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza in its response to the attacks of October 2023? What should be done about the mass starvation there?
I'll await your answer, Senator.
As always, I'll post here whatever response I get.
With another email. I guess the video messages are not his usual MO.
Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted.
Anyway, this is what was in the letter:
Dear David,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts regarding budget
reconciliation. Your feedback is essential as we work together to shape
policies that benefit Pennsylvania and our country.
On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful
Bill Act (OBBB), a budget reconciliation bill focused on tax policy,
national security, and energy production. The bill makes permanent key
provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), including the
lowering individual tax rates, an enhanced and doubled Child Tax Credit,
and the increased standard deduction claimed by more than 90 percent of
taxpayers. It also eliminates taxes on tips and overtime pay for
millions of workers, eliminates taxes on auto loan interest for new cars
made in the United States, provides a $6,000 bonus exemption for
seniors, and strengthens the employer-provided childcare tax credit. In
addition, the bill includes a number of other measures aimed at
delivering tax relief for families and small businesses.
The OBBB also includes investments in border security, resources for
state and local law enforcement, modernization of the U.S. industrial
base, improvements to service members’ quality of life, and domestic
energy development.
I supported this bill because it delivers meaningful tax relief to
millions of Pennsylvania families and prevents what would have been the
largest tax increase in American history—over $4 trillion. It fulfills
key promises that both President Trump and I have made to secure our
border, strengthen our national defense, unleash American energy, and
lower costs for consumers. I believe these provisions will make a real
difference for working families and small businesses across the
Commonwealth.
It is an honor and a privilege to serve our great Commonwealth in the
United States Senate. I appreciate having the benefit of your comments
on this important matter. I am always grateful to hear from my
constituents.
Given the contents, it's safe to assume that Senator McCormick is responding to this blog post from June 30.
In that letter, I asked about how many of the estimated 10.9 million people who would lose their health insurance and how many of the estimated 2.4 million people who would loose medicare were from Pennsylvania. It's also been estimated that as many as 51,000 people would die due to the One Big Beautiful Bill.
I asked the Senator:
How many of your constituents will have to lose their medical benefits
(or their lives) just to order to pay for this upward distribution of
wealth, Senator?
Senator Dave McCormick answered none of these questions.
He did say that the bill "delivers meaningful tax relief to
millions of Pennsylvania families and prevents what would have been the
largest tax increase in American history" when in reality, as the Congressional Budget Office said:
Higher-income households would benefit the most by receiving a larger
tax cut because they earn more money. The agency said the lowest 10
percent of earners would see a $1,600 or 3.9 percent reduction in their
available income and benefits per year, adjusted for inflation, mainly
due to cuts in Medicaid and SNAP.
So this is a "response" of sorts. If you wanna accept gaslighting as a response.
I am a resident of Pennsylvania and a constituent of yours and I'd like you
to answer a question or two.
Senator, like all the other Republicans in the Senate, you voted for the
recent "rescission" bill that, among some other things, will revoke about a
billion dollars from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Public television and radio stations play an integral role in our
nation’s emergency alert system. Public media’s infrastructure provides
the broadest nationwide communications platform in the country, and its
national-local organization allows public media entities to distribute
national, state, and regional emergency alerts and provide encrypted,
geo-targeted alerts to local communities in times of need.
And:
The Public Radio Satellite System (PRSS), managed by NPR, receives a
national Emergency Alert System feed directly from the Federal Emergency
Management Agency ( FEMA) to send Presidential emergency alerts to
local public radio stations. NPR/PRSS is also named as a resource in at
least 20 states’ emergency plans, with many public radio stations
serving as Primary Entry Point (PEP) stations. The PRSS network includes
almost 400 stations, serving more than 1,200 local public radio
stations, supporting secure, reliable communications without relying on
the Internet, which may not be reliable during emergencies.
Are you at all concerned that the cuts in CPB funding will adversely effect public safety? And if so, what are you doing in Pennsylvania to alleviate this situation?
I'll await your answer, Senator.
As always, I'll repost whatever response I get here in full.
Senator John Fetterman responded yesterday with this (I'll post a pdf of the letter at the bottom of this blog post::
Thank you for reaching out to my office. I appreciate hearing from you.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was created with a
critical task in mind – helping the nation to prepare, respond, and
recover from major disasters. When tragedy strikes, FEMA coordinates and
funds efforts to keep Pennsylvanians and folks across the country safe,
lending them a hand as they rebuild their communities.
Helping American communities prepare for, and recover from, natural
disasters should not be a partisan issue. Historically, congress has
come together on a bipartisan basis to make sure funding is available
for hazard mitigation and rebuilding efforts. Sadly, this Administration
has adopted the recommendations of Project 2025 and President Trump has
stated that he wants to “wean” states off of FEMA assistance. These
cuts are already hurting Pennsylvanians. Earlier this year, near my home
in Allegheny County, FEMA cancelled a flood prevention grant in
Bridgeville that was awarded after a fatal storm devastated the
community in 2018.
Let me be clear: disaster relief is a bipartisan issue. Red and blue
communities are impacted by catastrophes equally. As a member of the
Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, I am
committed to doing everything I can to ensure that FEMA and other
federal partners involved in disaster mitigation and recovery have the
resources they need to continue to deliver for Pennsylvania and the
nation.
Thank you again for contacting me to share your thoughts. Please do
not hesitate to reach out in the future about other issues of importance
to you. If I can be of assistance, or if you’d like to learn more about
my work on behalf of Pennsylvanians and our commonwealth, I encourage
you to visit my website, https://www.fetterman.senate.gov/.
Nice to know that he appreciates hearing from me and that I should "not hesitate to reach out in the future about other issues of importance
to" me. I'll definitely keep doing that, Senator. Definitely.
Anyway, as his letter mentions FEMA but not the date of any specific letter of mine, it has to be responding to one of these two letters:
June 20, 2025
- when I asked about DHS Secretary Noem's plans on to abolish FEMA and
how many of the proposals were outlined in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 report.
July 11, 2025 -
when I asked about DHS Secretary Noem's disconnect between complaining
about how slow FEMA reacts and how her own actions slowed down FEMA's
actions after the devastating flooding in Texas.
Considering that the Senator's letter to me also mentions Project 2025 nobutt Texas, it's safe to assume he's responding to the former rather than the latter.
So how well does he do?
In that blog post after describing how Noem asked FEMA for a memo on how to dismantle itself, I asked:
Good idea? Bad idea? Do you support any of this, Senator Fetterman? And if not, when will you be making a public comment on it?
You can see his answer in the third and fourth paragraphs of his letter. Specifically:
Sadly, this Administration
has adopted the recommendations of Project 2025 and President Trump has
stated that he wants to “wean” states off of FEMA assistance. These
cuts are already hurting Pennsylvanians.
And so on.
While not going as far as I would like, he's definitely in the "this is a bad idea" column. Good for him.
However, as there's also no mention of DHS Secretary Noem in his letter that means there's also place for the Senator to comment on the memo Noem asked for (or his vote to confirm her in that office, for that matter).
And that was kinda the point of my blog post.
It was certainly better than this "response" but still not enough.
U.S.
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday fired several more Justice
Department employees who worked for Special Counsel Jack Smith to
investigate President Donald Trump's retention of classified records and
efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to five people
familiar with the matter.
About 20 lawyers, support staff and U.S. Marshals who worked on Smith's probe were terminated, according to one of the sources.
And:
Fourteen attorneys
who worked on Smith's team were fired on January 27 because of work on
cases against Trump, becoming some of the department's earliest
employees who were dismissed. Department leadership told those attorneys
in termination letters that they could not be trusted to carry out
Trump's agenda because of their work on Smith's probe.
Including the people fired on Friday, at least 37 people who worked on Smith's team have been terminated since Trump took office on January 20.
The
Justice Department in recent months has also fired people who handled
casework involving defendants who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6,
2021, in an attempt to block Congress from certifying President Joe
Biden's 2020 election win.
You voted to confirm her as AG, did you think she would be doing any of this when you voted for her?
Do you think any of this is good for the country?
Any comment at all about AG Pam Bondi?
I'll await your answer, Senator.
As always, I'll post here whatever response I get.
The president does not have the power to create or rewrite legislation —
that is Congress’s job. He is not authorized to dispense with or suspend the
law. British kings made this practice familiar to the Framers of the
Constitution, who deliberately chose to deny such a power to the president.
Yet while history books are filled with disputes between the president and
Congress over the scope of their powers, today we are in an era of
unparalleled presidential overreach. President Obama openly flouts his duty
to faithfully enforce the law — with the battle cry that “we can’t wait” for
Congress to act.
To determine if modern presidents have become too powerful, let’s start by
referring to the Constitution. Article II charges the president with the
duty to carry out the law — to “take care that the laws be faithfully
executed.” Contrary to what some more ambitious presidents would have us
believe, this was meant to constrain the executive’s power. It’s a duty that
includes complying with statutory mandates, enforcing laws and regulations
(including prosecuting lawbreakers) and defending the validity of laws in
court.
And so on.
And now:
Tell me, oh great protectors of democracy at Heritage, where in the Constitution does it say that the President has the authority to rescind anyone's citizenship? And to rescind simply because that president doesn't like what someone says?
Here, I'll start you off:
To determine if modern presidents have become too powerful, let’s start by
referring to the Constitution. Article II charges the president with the
duty to carry out the law — to “take care that the laws be faithfully
executed..."
I am a resident of Pennsylvania and a constituent of yours and I'd like you
to answer a question or two.
I'd like to ask you about Jeffrey Epstein.
This past weekend, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social about "the Epstein files" asserting (without evidence) that they were written by, "Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration."
Do you believe that is true?
And he asserts twice that the 2020 election was "rigged and stolen."
Do you believe that is true?
Note: Just to be clear, I'm not asking you to confirm or deny that he asserted it, but what he asserted, that the 2020 election was rigged. Do you believe that?
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday said the
Jeffrey Epstein client list is "sitting on my desk right now" and she is
reviewing the JFK and MLK files as well after President Donald Trump's earlier directives.
"It's
sitting on my desk right now to review," Bondi told 'America Reports'
host John Roberts on Friday. "That's been a directive by President
Trump."
And yet the Department of Justice issued a statement that read, in part:
This systematic review revealed no incriminating “client list.” There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.
Which do you think is true? That there was a client list on AG Bondi's desk or that it never existed?
I'll await your answer, Senator.
As always, I'll repost verbatim whatever the response I get.
The storm was bad. It was going to be bad
no matter who was in The White House. There's a distinct possibility
that it was made worse by climate change - and the science investigating
that has been denied by the current administration. There's also a more
than distinct possibility that however bad the storm was, it's effects
were made worse by the current administration's DOGE-style downsizing.
Hate to say it, but Texas is having the day it voted for.
Two days after catastrophic floods roared
through Central Texas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency did not
answer nearly two-thirds of calls to its disaster assistance line,
according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.
The
lack of responsiveness happened because the agency had fired hundreds
of contractors at call centers, according to a person briefed on the
matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss
internal matters.
The agency laid off
the contractors on July 5 after their contracts expired and were not
extended, according to the documents and the person briefed on the
matter. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who has instituted
a new requirement that she personally approve expenses over $100,000,
did not renew the contracts until Thursday, five days after the
contracts expired. FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
The Times has some details:
On July 5, as floodwaters were starting
to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and
answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors
with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the
calls.
That evening, however, Ms. Noem
did not renew the contracts with the four companies and hundreds of
contractors were fired, according to the documents and the person
briefed on the matter.
The next day,
July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8
percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency
fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the
documents show.
Red-State MAGA Texans should be so proud of themselves for voting for Trump right now.
(Note: I'll load the text at the end of this blog post.)
Senator McCormick is evidently responding to
this letter of mine, dated May 12, 2025.
It's about Qatar's "gift" of a plane that President Donald Trump wants to
refit as a "new" Air Force One.
So, after quoting the Constitution's "Emolument" clause, I asked the Senator:
Wouldn't that "gift" of a $300-400 million jet be, more or less, a gross
violation of the Constitution's emolument clause?
I realize that recently President Trump said that he "didn't know" whether
he had an uphold the Constitution (even though he took an oath to do exactly
that in January) but shouldn't he be upholding it?
Isn't the gift from Qatar just one big bribe? Don't we deserve better?
As with any of these "letters to a Senator" blog posts, it's important to note
not only what the Senator says vs what he does not say.
I asked him if the gift didn't violate the emolument clause and all he had to
say was this:
On May 21, U.S. Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth formally accepted a Boeing
747 jetliner from Qatar in accordance with federal regulations.
Kathleen Clark, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, says:
This appears to be an illegal, unconstitutional payoff from a foreign
government to the president at a scale we actually have never seen, on the
order of $400 million.
Adding:
Our founders put into our Constitution a prohibition on government officials,
including the president, accepting payments, gifts from foreign governments.
They didn't want our government officials to have tainted — to be tainted by
this kind of conflict of interest. And that's why the Constitution includes
this Emoluments Clause and says that the president and others cannot accept
such gifts, unless Congress specifically authorizes it.
The fact that it's done out in the open, she says, in no way diminishes the
corruption. She even says Trump is laundering the gift through the Department
of Defense - as he'll get the jet for his library once his term is over.
So the legality of the gift is not so clean as Pennsylvania's junior senator
would like us to believe.
And that's all he really says about the legality of the gift, though he does offer a
glancing shot at a quid pro quo with this:
As a businessman, I understand there is no such thing as a free lunch,
and the Qatari jet is no exception.
I am concerned this foreign plane lacks the critical capabilities, such as
the ability to refuel in midair or carry advanced technological equipment,
needed for the President to command the U.S. military from the air.
Furthermore, the Qatari jet could pose substantial espionage and surveillance
risks. It is also worth noting that the Qatari government, which gifted the
plane to the United States, has, on some issues, been an important partner in
the region while at the same time providing considerable support to Hamas and
Hezbollah. [Emphasis added.]
Let me tangent for a moment on that "no such thing as a free lunch" part. Back
in 2024,
WHYY reported:
In 1974, in an effort to preserve farmland in the commonwealth, the
Pennsylvania state legislature passed Act 319, creating the Clean and Green
program. The program provided tax breaks to farms and farmers whose tax bills
may have become too onerous to keep operating.
And:
However, a number of wealthy individuals — who do not engage in commercial
farming — also benefit from the tax break while not serving the program’s
originally intended purpose. In 2018,
the Morning Call
found that the program cut property taxes for “millionaires living in country
estates, and golf courses, quarries, and other non-agricultural
business.”
And:
According to Clean and Green records, one of those wealthy property owners
benefiting from the program is Republican
nominee for U.S. Senate, David McCormick, who owns hundreds of acres in Hemlock Township in Columbia County.
Although McCormick has said multiple times he is “not a farmer,” he has been availing himself of that tax relief for what he calls his “family farm,” Frosty Valley Farms, which was listed as Frosty Valley Farms, LLC in 2018.
And so it goes.
Anyway, McCormick spends more time criticizing Boeing for being behind schedule than he does about the actual legality of the gift.
And he never addresses whether Trump should be upholding the Constitution.
[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall,
without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument,
Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or
foreign State.
Happy Weekend!
The text of Senator McCormick's letter:
Thank you for sharing your concerns regarding President Donald Trump’s
decision to accept a Boeing 747 aircraft from Qatar to serve as Air Force
One. Your feedback is essential as we work together to shape policies that
benefit Pennsylvania and our country.
On May 21, U.S. Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth formally accepted a
Boeing 747 jetliner from Qatar in accordance with federal regulations. The
U.S. Air Force is now preparing to award a contract to upgrade the aircraft,
with the goal of enabling it to serve as Air Force One by the end of 2025.
Once upgraded, this aircraft will complement the two Boeing 747 jets that
have served as Air Force One since the George H.W. Bush Administration.
In 2018, Boeing won a $3.9 billion contract to build two new Air Force One
aircrafts. However, the first of these planes will not be ready until 2029.
As a result, the Trump Administration intends for the Qatari jet to serve as
an interim presidential plane until the new aircraft is delivered.
I am disappointed that Boeing has not fulfilled its contractual obligations.
The company is now five years behind schedule and billions of dollars over
budget. I also agree the current presidential planes are outdated, and the
President of the United States needs the most secure and sophisticated
aircrafts available. At the same time, it will cost at least $400 million to
retrofit the Qatari jet with the necessary defense and communications
systems.
As a businessman, I understand there is no such thing as a free lunch, and
the Qatari jet is no exception. I am concerned this foreign plane lacks the
critical capabilities, such as the ability to refuel in midair or carry
advanced technological equipment, needed for the President to command the
U.S. military from the air. Furthermore, the Qatari jet could pose
substantial espionage and surveillance risks. It is also worth noting that
the Qatari government, which gifted the plane to the United States, has, on
some issues, been an important partner in the region while at the same time
providing considerable support to Hamas and Hezbollah.
For all these reasons, I intend to work with my Senate colleagues to
scrutinize this deal to ensure it does not pose any security threats to the
United States and explore ways to expedite the delivery of the Boeing-made
planes.
It is an honor and a privilege to serve our great Commonwealth in the United
States Senate. I appreciate having the benefit of your comments on this
important matter. I am always grateful to hear from my constituents.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called on Wednesday for the
Federal Emergency Management Agency to be eliminated in its current
form, even as the disaster-relief agency deployed specialists and
supplies to Texas to help respond to devastating floods.
And:
Speaking
at a meeting of a government review council looking at ways to reform
FEMA, Noem noted that the agency had provided resources, including
search and recovery personnel, to aid state and local officials in Texas
leading the response.
But
Noem, who chairs the council, also took the opportunity to blast FEMA
for what she called numerous past failures. She said the agency moves
too slowly and ties up state and local officials in bureaucracy.
As monstrous floodwaters surged across central Texas late
last week, officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency leapt
into action, preparing to deploy critical search and rescue teams and
life-saving resources, like they have in countless past disasters.
But almost instantly, FEMA ran into bureaucratic obstacles, four officials inside the agency told CNN.
As CNN has previously reported,
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — whose department oversees
FEMA — recently enacted a sweeping rule aimed at cutting spending: Every
contract and grant over $100,000 now requires her personal sign-off
before any funds can be released.
And:
For example, as central Texas towns were submerged in rising
waters, FEMA officials realized they couldn’t pre-position Urban Search
and Rescue crews from a network of teams stationed regionally across
the country.
In the past, FEMA would have swiftly staged these teams,
which are specifically trained for situations including catastrophic
floods, closer to a disaster zone in anticipation of urgent requests,
multiple agency sources told CNN.
But even as Texas rescue crews raced to save lives, FEMA
officials realized they needed Noem’s approval before sending those
additional assets. Noem didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of Urban
Search and Rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the
flooding began, multiple sources told CNN.
So as Noem is criticizing FEMA for moving too slowly because of its bureaucracy, her own actions delayed FEMA from mobilizing its resources in response to the flooding in Texas.
You voted to confirm Kristi Noem as Secretary of DHS. Do you have any comment on any of this?
I'll await your answer, Senator.
As always, I'll post in full whatever response I get from the Senator's office.
A number of you have sent in emails or sent letters or made phone calls
expressing your concern or at least your questions about President Trump's
recent actions in Iran and the fear that America would be pulled into
another forever war.
So first of all, I want to thank you for engaging, expressing your concerns,
your opinions, and your questions. You know, I was elected to represent
every single Pennsylvanian and it really helps me do my job to be in
constant touch with you and to be able to hear what's on your mind.
Here's my perspective on this: I was actually a soldier who had boots on the
ground in Iraq, in Saudi Arabia and Iraq in the first Gulf War. I never
imagined there'd be a day where the Iranian regime, the leader of terrorism
around the world that had threatened the possibility of a nuclear weapon to
destroy Israel and to destroy the United States—what Iran called the Great
Satan—Iran that had supported all these terrorist proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas,
the Iran that had killed thousands of Americans in Lebanon, in Iraq, in
Syria—that Iran would ultimately have been weakened by the unbelievable
attacks by the Israeli military and also the nuclear capacity really
dramatically diminished and eliminated by the strength and the attack that
took place.
Only the United States could have done what President Trump did with that
very focused B2 attacks on the Iranian facilities.
I'm in 100% support of that.
And it's very different from the forever wars, the 20 years—which, listen, I
share with a lot of Americans the deep skepticism of getting involved again
in the Middle East and the risk to American lives and treasure. Pennsylvania
suffered that more than anybody.
But what President Trump did here, I think, was incredibly wise and
courageous. First of all, he offered Iran every opportunity for a peaceful
resolution. He made it clear we have to have the dismantlement of nuclear
weapons and the elimination of that enrichment capability. He made it clear
that if that action didn't come through peace, it would come through action.
And that action would be targeted just on eliminating that nuclear
capability on the part of Iran, not a war against the Iranian people. And he
made it clear that he wasn't seeking regime change, that he was trying to
avoid the threat – talk about America First - the threat to Americans of
Iran having nuclear weapons with its desire to destroy the West and America
in particular.
So I think that mission was executed with incredible competence, incredible
strength, and clarity, and really resets the table. It's a new chessboard in
the Middle East that I hope and think will offer opportunity for peace.
This doesn't mean the risk from Iran is gone. We've got to be vigilant on
our bases. We've got to be vigilant at home against the risk of a terrorist
attack. But we're in an entirely different world than we were just a few
short days ago because of the leadership and the wisdom of the Trump
administration, the incredible bravery and effectiveness of the Israeli
military, our closest ally in the Middle East. So we've made huge progress
and I think these actions are going to keep us out of a forever war, not get
us in one.
He's responding to
this blog post from June 23. As with that response, keep in mind not only what Sen. McCormick
says but also (and this is much more important) what Sen. McCormick has chosen
not to say.
In that blog post, I asked about the dissonance between how Trump's Director
of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard said that Iran is not building a
nuclear weapon and then how President Trump himself said it is, adding, "I
don't care what she said."
I asked which one is true.
I also asked, given the
War Powers Act,
whether the Congress should have been involved in (or at least notified of)
the decision to
bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran.
The Senator doesn't specifically answer the Trump/Gabbard question but from
the transcript, he obviously sides with Trump. He said:
He made it clear we have to have the dismantlement of nuclear weapons and the
elimination of that enrichment capability.
He's also 100% supports Trump's decision to bomb the nuclear facilities.
A little more on this later.
And the Senator doesn't address my question about the War Powers Act at all.
It is the purpose of this chapter to fulfill the intent of the framers of the
Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgment of
both the
Congress
and the President will apply to the
introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in
hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and to the continued
use of such forces in hostilities or in such situations.
And:
The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce
United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent
involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances,
are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2)
specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by
attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed
forces. [Emphasis added.]
None of which actually took place here.
So it's safe to suppose that it's yet another law that Trump ignore with no accountability from his allies in Congress.
Oh, and Senator McCormick is simply wrong about regime change. He said:
And [President Trump] made it clear that he wasn't seeking regime change...
And yet
Reuters reported
(as I pointed out in my original posting):
U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday raised the question of regime change in
Iran following U.S. strikes against key military sites over the weekend, as
senior officials in his administration warned Tehran against retaliation.
"It’s not politically correct to use the term, “Regime Change,” but if the
current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there
be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!" Trump wrote on his social media platform.
Sen. McCormick got it wrong. Even if Trump back pedaled on regime change, none of it was "clear."
Iran's centrifuges will only enrich uranium to 3.67% -- enough for civil
use to power parts of the country, but not enough to build a nuclear
bomb. That agreement lasts 15 years. And Tehran has agreed not to build
any new uranium enrichment facilities over that period as well. The
3.67% is a major decline, and it follows Iran's move to water down its
stockpile of 20% enriched uranium last year. In addition, Iran will
reduce its current stockpile of 10,000 kilograms of low-enriched uranium
to 300 kilograms for 15 years.
And:
Iran's Fordow nuclear reactor would stop enriching uranium for at least
15 years. It will not have fissile material at the facility, but it will
be able to keep 1,000 centrifuges there. Fordo, one of the country's
biggest reactors, is buried more than 200 feet under the side of a
mountain and was hidden from the international community until the U.S.
revealed it in 2009.
And so on.
Trump withdrew from the plan, calling it "one-sided" for some reason.
It's not difficult to see what that led to afterwards.
In response to the other parties’ actions, which Tehran claimed amounted
to breaches of the deal, Iran started exceeding agreed-upon limits to
its stockpile of low-enriched uranium in 2019, and began enriching
uranium to higher concentrations (though still far short of the purity
required for weapons). It also began developing new centrifuges to accelerate uranium enrichment; resuming heavy water production at its Arak facility; and enriching uranium [PDF] at Fordow, which rendered the isotopes produced there unusable for medical purposes.
And:
In 2020, Iran took more steps away from its nuclear pledges, following
a series of attacks on its interests. In January, after the United
States’ targeted killing of top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, Iran
announced that it would no longer limit
its uranium enrichment. In October, it began constructing a centrifuge
production center at Natanz to replace one that was destroyed months
earlier in an attack it blamed on Israel. And in November, in response to the assassination
of a prominent nuclear scientist, which it also attributed to Israel,
Iran’s parliament passed a law that led to a substantial boost in
uranium enrichment at Fordow.
Tehran has increasingly limited
the IAEA’s ability to inspect its facilities since Washington withdrew
from the nuclear deal, though it pledged in March 2023 to boost
cooperation with the agency. The commitment came months after IAEA
inspectors detected uranium particles enriched to 83.7 percent at
Fordow, prompting international concern.
And so on.
However much Iran was increasing its nuclear programs after 2018, those increases were due - in no small part - to Trump administration actions removing restrictions on those programs.
Trump - again, in no small part - created the situation in Iran that he felt he had to fix with B2 bombers - all side stepping the War Powers Act.
And when Senator McCormick says:
He made it clear we have to have the dismantlement of nuclear
weapons and the elimination of that enrichment capability.
And yet failed to point out that Trump actually stopped the Obama-era plan that was doing exactly that, he failed to fully inform his constituents.
I am a resident of Pennsylvania and a constituent of yours and I'd like you
to answer a question or two.
I'd like to ask you about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (aka
SNAP) and how Trump's recently passed "Big Beautiful Bill" will reduce its
funding.
You voted for Trump's bill so you voted for SNAP's reduction in federal
funding.
Proposed changes to SNAP, commonly known as food stamps, in the so-called
“big, beautiful bill” tax and spending package championed by President
Donald Trump
would shift some program costs from the federal government to the state. And
based on the proposed plan, and how the program has been funded here in recent
years, the state could have to pay hundreds of millions more — as much as a
threefold increase, according to some projections.
And:
Gov.
Josh Shapiro
has said there is no way for the state to absorb the added costs. He estimated
that of the 2 million state residents currently receiving benefits from SNAP,
140,000 would be kicked off the rolls, according to the Pennsylvania
Department of Human Services’ (DHS) analysis of the House version of the
bill.
140,000 Pennsylvanians kicked off the SNAP rolls. That's about 7% of the
total.
All that just to help pay for Trump's massive tax cuts to the already
extremely wealthy.
How will you be explaining this to your constituents, Senator? Will you be
explaining how some of them will be even more food insecure just so those few
folks who've never had to worry about where their next meal is coming from can
have just a little more money at the end of the year?
Will you be explaining your vote to them?
I'll await your answer, Senator.
Of course, I'll post the Senator's answer here in full.
UPDATE: I corrected an error an astute reader discovered in first
link.
Rescue crews continued searching Saturday along the swollen Guadalupe
River in Central Texas after catastrophic flooding left at least 52
people dead, including 15 children.
Dozens more remain unaccounted for, according to The NY Times,
including around 27 girls from a nearly century-old Christian summer
camp in Kerr County. Most of the confirmed fatalities occurred in Kerr
County, where more than 850 people were evacuated. Four deaths were also
reported in Travis County, which includes Austin. Officials warned the
death toll is likely to rise as search efforts continue.
Crucial positions at the local offices of
the National Weather Service were unfilled as severe rainfall inundated
parts of Central Texas on Friday morning, prompting some experts to
question whether staffing shortages made it harder for the forecasting
agency to coordinate with local emergency managers as floodwaters rose.
Texas
officials appeared to blame the Weather Service for issuing forecasts
on Wednesday that underestimated how much rain was coming. But former
Weather Service officials said the forecasts were as good as could be
expected, given the enormous levels of rainfall and the storm’s
unusually abrupt escalation.
The
staffing shortages suggested a separate problem, those former officials
said — the loss of experienced people who would typically have helped
communicate with local authorities in the hours after flash flood
warnings were issued overnight.
An "unusually abrupt escalation" of the storm combined with staffing shortages made this horror story a whole lot more horrible.
Let's set aside climate change as having anything to do with these floods:
Meteorologists said that an atmosphere warmed by human-caused climate change
can hold more moisture and allow bad storms to dump more rain, though
it’s hard to connect specific storms to a warming planet so soon after
they occur.
“In
a warming climate we know that the atmosphere has more moisture to
give, to hold on to and then to release. But also the thing that we know
about climate change is that our rain events are not as uniform as what
they used to be,” said Shel Winkley, a meteorologist with Climate
Central. “So, you’ll get these big rain events happening in localized
areas, tapping into the historic level of moisture in the atmosphere.”
Because, of course, the science has been officially MAGA-denied by the MAGA-cult and the MAGA cult-leader, Donald J Trump.
But let's look further down the times story. To this:
The
amount of rain that fell Friday morning was hard for the Weather
Service to anticipate, with reports in some areas of 15 inches over just
a few hours, according to Louis W. Uccellini, who was director of the
National Weather Service from 2013 until 2022.
“It’s
pretty hard to forecast for these kinds of rainfall rates,” Dr.
Uccellini said. He said that climate change was making extreme rainfall
events more frequent and severe, and that more research was needed so
that the Weather Service could better forecast those events.
An
equally important question, he added, was how the Weather Service was
coordinating with local emergency managers to act on those warnings as
they came in.
And this:
“You have to have a response mechanism
that involves local officials,” Dr. Uccellini said. “It involves a
relationship with the emergency management community, at every level.”
But that requires having staff members in those positions, he said.
And then this:
That office’s warning coordination meteorologist left on April 30, after taking the early retirement package
the Trump administration used to reduce the number of federal
employees, according to a person with knowledge of his departure.
Some
of the openings may predate the current Trump administration. But at
both offices, the vacancy rate is roughly double what it was when Mr.
Trump returned to the White House in January, according to Mr. Fahy.
John
Sokich, who until January was director of congressional affairs for the
National Weather Service, said those unfilled positions made it harder
to coordinate with local officials because each Weather Service office
works as a team. “Reduced staffing puts that in jeopardy,” he said.
The storm was bad. It was going to be bad no matter who was in The White House. There's a distinct possibility that it was made worse by climate change - and the science investigating that has been denied by the current administration. There's also a more than distinct possibility that however bad the storm was, it's effects were made worse by the current administration's DOGE-style downsizing.
Hate to say it, but Texas is having the day it voted for.
I am a resident of Pennsylvania and a constituent of
yours and I'd like you to answer a question or two.
Before proceeding, I'd like to thank you for your most recent response to one of my letters. It is certainly gratifying to know that, especially now, your office takes the time to respond so diligently and so completely to constituent concerns.
Having said that, I'd like to ask you, again, about AG Pam Bondi - since you did vote to confirm her as head of Donald Trump's Department of Justice.
The Trump administration terminated at least three attorneys Friday
who led prosecutions into Jan. 6 Capitol riot defendants, three people
familiar with the moves said.
Two supervisors in the Capitol
siege section in the Washington US attorney’s office and an assistant US
attorney who handled numerous insurrection trials received notices from
Attorney General Pam Bondi that their termination was effective
immediately, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to
share sensitive personnel matters.
These are the latest
disciplinary actions taken against DOJ attorneys who brought criminal
charges against the mob storming the Capitol in support of Trump’s bid
to overturn the 2020 election results.
The firings come at a time when the fallout from the Jan. 6 investigation — and Trump’s subsequent mass pardon of even the most violent rioters
— continues to loom over employees at both the Justice Department and
the FBI. Numerous current and former officials have told NBC News that
the targeting of people who worked on the largest investigation in FBI
history have had a chilling effect on the Justice Department workforce,
and would leave career prosecutors and FBI officials hesitant to pursue
cases against any Trump allies for fear of being targeted by the
administration.
It's "horrifying" noted one federal law enforcement official.
Evidently, not only is this Trump's revenge for any DOJ attorney who prosecuted those who broke the law during Trump's attempted coup of January 2021, but it's just as evident that this is a warning for any DOJ official looking to investigate Trump for anything else he may have done or may do in the future.
A former F.B.I. agent who was charged with encouraging the mob that
stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to kill police officers has been
named as an adviser to the Justice Department task force that President
Trump established to seek retribution against his political enemies.
And:
Even in a Justice Department that has often been pressed into serving
Mr. Trump’s political agenda, the appointment of Mr. Wise to the
weaponization task force was a remarkable development. His selection
meant that a man who had urged violence against police officers was now
responsible for the department’s official effort to exact revenge
against those who had tried to hold the rioters accountable.
Senator, you voted to confirm Pam Bondi as AG. Do you agree with anything described here? Is any of it good for the country? Does any of it further the cause of justice? Is this anything other than Trump's weaponization of a department that should be independent?
A number of you have raised questions about the reconciliation process
through letters or emails or phone calls. First, I want to thank you for
engaging. Thanks for your questions. Let me try to give you a quick sense of
what's going on.
Reconciliation is something that doesn't happen very often. It's only
happened for Republicans five times in the last 100 years. The primary thing
we're trying to do is deliver on President Trump's promises during the
campaign that the American people voted for.
So, the first thing is to make sure that we don't raise taxes – have the
highest increase in taxes in the history of our country. If you were a
family that made $50,000, if we didn't pass the reconciliation bill, the
big, beautiful bill, your taxes would go up by $2,000.
It also funds the border patrol and technology to make sure the terrible
flow of fentanyl into our country is stopped. It builds up our defense. It's
a very dangerous world right now with what's going on with Russia, Iran, and
China around the world. So, it gets funding for next-generation defense.
And it tries to begin to cut the growing deficit. We have $37 trillion of
debt and a $2 trillion deficit. We've got to bring that under control. One
of the ways it does that is to try to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse
across our government.
In one area in particular, Medicaid, we've seen the highest growth of any
program. It's grown by $250 billion dollars a year in the last five years.
And so, what the reconciliation bill is going to do is ensure that
working-age men without dependents, who the program was never designed for,
are required to work or at least volunteer to work in order to get the
benefits.
The key is to try to ensure that we can secure the program for the people
it's designed for: the most vulnerable among us, people with disabilities,
children, and women with dependents. So, there are lots of pieces to it.
Just know that I'm focused very much to make sure that I understand the
implications of this for Pennsylvania and fighting for Pennsylvania's
interest and delivering on the promises that I made during the campaign.
He's responding to
this blog post of only a few days ago. It's so good to know that his office can respond this quickly to a
blog post (keeping in mind that it's evident from the text that he's not just
responding to me but to a great many other Pennsylvanians as well).
There's a number of things to point out here - not only what Sen. McCormick
says but also (and this is much more important) what Sen. McCormick chooses not to
say.
Like this, for instance:
And it tries to begin to cut the growing deficit. We have $37 trillion of debt
and a $2 trillion deficit. We've got to bring that under control. One of the
ways it does that is to try to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse across our
government.
An increase in the federal deficit of $3.8 trillion attributable to tax
changes, including extending provisions of the 2017 tax act, which includes
revenues and outlays for refundable credits.
Does our good Senator not know this? Does he not know that Trump's bill will increase the federal deficit by trillions? Or does he know this and just
simply chose not to include it in his message to his constituents?
How about this:
CBO estimates that household resources would decrease by an amount
equal to about 2 percent of income in the lowest decile (tenth) of the
income distribution in 2027 and 4 percent in 2033, mainly as a result of
losses of in-kind transfers, such as Medicaid and SNAP. By contrast, resources would increase by an amount equal to 4 percent for
households in the highest decile in 2027 and 2 percent in 2033, mainly
because of reductions in they taxes they owe. The distributional effects vary
throughout the 10-year projection period as different components of the
legislation are phased in and out.
Something else Senator Dave McCormick chose not to tell you.
SNAP provides food benefits to low-income families to supplement their
grocery budget so they can afford the nutritious food essential to
health and well-being.
So how many Pennsylvanians will see a decrease in their SNAP benefits - a decrease implemented in order to shuttle even more money to the already wealthy?
The reconciliation package currently making its way through Congress
would make significant cuts to federal funding for Medicaid and the
Affordable Care Act. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO),
an additional 11.8 million people could be uninsured in 2034 if the
version introduced by the Senate is passed. (This is a fast-moving piece
of legislation and additional changes could be made, though the
reconciliation bill is likely to be put up for a vote before another CBO
score can be completed).
How many of those losing coverage will be Pennsylvanians - coverage lost to cover the cost of greater tax decreases for the already wealthy?
The Senator does not say.
He does say he's "focused" and "fighting for Pennsylvania's interests" which evidently means the interests of those constituents of his that don't need health insurance or, you know, food assistance.
