Veterans advocate, PR for
@wwp
in support of our nation’s wounded vets. Tweets are my own. Bylines
@WSJ
@HBO
and some political journalism here and there.
If you've been injured in combat, you shouldn't have to choose between your EARNED retirement pay and your disability benefits. It's time for Congress to pass the Major Richard Star Act and ensure these heroes receive the support they deserve.
BREAKING: Federal judge UPHOLDS the counting of the few hundred challenged ballots in Pa's 45th senatorial district race, validating Democrat Jim Brewster's victory and handing the GOP another loss in the courts.
Since
@GeraldoRivera
has taken it upon himself to cast doubt on the recent wave of sexual harassment allegations, here's a clip of Bette Midler in 2001 talking about being assaulted by him.
On Feb. 27 of last year, I asked Jimmy Wopo what it was like to grow up in an environment of violence and chaos. This was his (sobering, powerful) answer.
The 21-year-old was shot dead today in the Hill District.
New: At least 33 mayors who serve in cities and boroughs in Pennsylvania that Donald Trump won in 2016 will endorse Joe Biden for the presidency on Thursday.
Rep. Conor Lamb: "A woman died out there tonight, and you're making these objections. Let's be clear about what happened in this chamber today: invaders came in for the first time since the War of 1812."
BREAKING: U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, a prominent Western Pa. Democrat in a battleground district Trump carried in 2016, is endorsing Joe Biden for president.
Rewatched Lamb. The first shouts from GOP members came after Lamb said this of today's mob:
"For the most part, they walked in here free. A lot of them walked out free. And there wasn't a person watching at home who didn't know why that was: because of the way that they look."
I’m ashamed that the Erik Prince interview is the first I’ve seen from
@mehdirhasan
. Better late than never, I suppose. Binge-watching his work like it’s a Netflix original.
The union that represents me and my newsroom colleagues submitted a letter to the editor denouncing the disgusting, racist editorial that ran in Monday's Post-Gazette.
Our publisher rejected the letter.
So here it is.
No, Trump has not won Pennsylvania. There are 982,415 mail-in ballots left to count in a state where Biden — so far — has won the total mail-in vote by a 3.63-to-1 ratio.
A *big* update in Pennsylvania.
Another 162K ballots have been counted (160k were mail-ins.)
With the new tallies, Trump's lead has dropped to 484K (from 598K) in PA.
Biden closed the gap by more than 100k with this upload, thx to winning these mail-ins by a 6:1 ratio.
From ruling: "Contrary to Ms. Ziccarelli’s reading, the Court finds that the
Supreme Court expressly held that the undated ballots at issue remain valid ballots that are properly counted under state law."
An oddball scoop from PA's Senate race: John Fetterman's camp will fly a banner over the beaches of South Jersey this weekend that reads, "HEY DR. OZ, WELCOME HOME TO NJ! <3 JOHN" and roll out an ad labeling Oz 'all about New Jersey' and 'not one of us.'
NEW: In his first interview since suffering a stroke, John Fetterman told me he’s “feeling really good,” said he has “nothing to hide” on the status of his health and described the lingering effects of his stroke as minor and infrequent.
More: "Thus, because Ms. Ziccarelli’s federal constitutional claims all depend on the invalidity of the ballots under state law, those claims necessarily fail on the merits."
Lamb: "We know that that attack today, it didn't materialize out of nowhere. It was inspired by lies, the same lies you're hearing in this room tonight, and the members who are repeating those lies should be ashamed of themselves. Their constituents should be ashamed of them."
Big Pennsylvania update:
They counted 195K ballots in last hour-and-a-half. (190K mail-in)
Biden won mail-in batch 150K to 39K. That's 3.87 votes for every 1 Trump got.
As a result, Biden closed the gap by 110K votes. Trump leads by 259K with 690,830 mail-ins left to count.
NEW Franklin & Marshall College poll of U.S. Senate primary in PA.
Fetterman: 53%
Lamb: 14%
Kenyatta: 4%
(Survey of 357 registered Dems, conducted April 20 to May 1)
That’s a 12-point bump for Fetterman since the last F&M poll, conducted in early April.
Chevy Chase, one of SNL's founding fathers, on what the show has become: "I had to watch a little of it, and I just couldn’t f**king believe it. That means a whole generation of sh*theads laughs at the worst f**king humor in the world."
Update in Pennsylvania:
In the last two hours, 103K votes have been counted (101K by mail.)
Biden won the mail-in batch 72K to 28K (2.53-to-1 ratio).
Biden gained about 44K on Trump's lead, which is now at 369K votes with 880,950 mail-in ballots left to count.
Pa. Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar: "Philadelphia and every other county in the state can have poll watchers -- President Trump, every candidate, parties. That hasn't changed."
"His tweets... again, voters need to ignore the disinformation."
More: "That is, even if applying disparate counting standards in Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties creates an equal-protection concern, the validity of the challenged ballots forecloses any argument...that the Court could throw out Allegheny County’s ballots as a remedy."
Sen. Bob Casey says he is an early "NO" vote on whoever Trump picks for Supreme Court tonight. Says he can't support "corrupt process" of Trump choosing nominee from list "funded by the corporate right."
"The truth hurts," Lamb yells at the GOP side as Republicans vocally object to his remarks.
"There will be order in the House," Pelosi says as GOP members yell.
"The fact is this," Lamb continues, "We want this government to work more than they want it to fail."
Now, must point out: Senate GOP has specifically said that they'd seat whoever is successful in federal court "as long as the findings from the court are to the merit of the challenge.." and not to matters of federal court jurisdiction.
A "wow" line from
@bykowicz
: "President Trump is racing to raise money for an 'official election defense fund.' But the fine print...tells a different story: Half — or more — of any contribution will be used to retire debt from his re-election campaign."
White House pool report from
@hunterw
: "The White House called a travel/photo lid at about 5:25 pm today meaning the press will not see the president or get to ask him questions on the day he falsely declared victory in the election."
Lara Putnam, a University of Pittsburgh professor who studies the electoral landscape in Western Pennsylvania, said she expects the provisional ballots to “less Biden-heavy than mail-ins, but still net Biden more votes than Trump.”
Here's how the count has changed in Pennsylvania since shortly before 9 a.m., when Biden took the lead:
PA has uploaded 25,476 results. 23K were mail-in ballots.
Biden won the mail-ins by almost exactly a 2:1 ratio, and his lead has climbed from 5,510 to 13,471.
That's where this could get complicated. From a political perspective alone, would anyone be surprised if Senate GOP leadership tried to claim that the ruling's reliance on Rooker-Feldman falls within that 'jurisdiction' matter they intentionally specified?
On CNN, Parkland survivor David Hogg says Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Jennifer Hudson and Demi Lovato have agreed to participate in
#MarchForOurLives
.
As I read it, Ranjan's ruling goes to the merits of the case: It doesn't JUST rely on doctrines that constrain federal judges from overturning state courts in these cases (though he says he'd violate that doctrine if he reached the opposite result.)
New: John Fetterman’s campaign for U.S. Senate is asking TV stations in Pennsylvania to pull down one of Dr. Oz's TV ads for spreading “blatant lies and misinformation” about his criminal justice reform positions.
By my estimate, there are *at least* 95,652 mail-in ballots left to tally. Like we've said all day (and which was just confirmed w/ batch from Westmoreland County), Biden is only expected to grow lead w/ these. Even in Republican strongholds.
I’ve gotta join the many others in thanking
@Jomboy_
and
@TalkinJake
for helping reignite my passion for the game of baseball this season. I grew distant from the Yankees when I started college — and it’s like I got to fall in love all over again. Thanks, you two.
Nicole Ziccarelli, in a statement now: "For the best interests of all residents of the 45th, I will not further appeal this decision and will withdraw my contest filed with the Senate."
KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh wants to hold the first televised debate in the race for one of the country’s most important U.S. Senate seats, but to this point, only Republican nominee Mehmet Oz has agreed to participate. Date set for Sept. 6, as of now.
Many are asking why they keep hearing 735K mail-in ballots are left to be tallied in Pennsylvania.
CNN just cited this number, then said they’re still awaiting results from Allegheny County. That’s not true. Allegheny County is done.
Little update out of Pennsylvania. 36K more votes uploaded to state site in last 90 minutes.
34,856 were mail-in ballots. Biden won these 25,108 to 9,273 (a ratio of about 2.7-to-1.)
Trump lead is down to 176,498 with about 488,000 mail-in ballots left to tally.
Carl Bernstein to
@brianstelter
: "Donald Trump has been president of his base. He has not been president of all the people. He has not been a president of the United States in a way that presidents have tried to bring factions together."
The first time Donald Trump Jr. tweeted about WikiLeaks?
The same day (Sept. 4) the Trump team received email offering a decryption key for hacked Wikileaks docs.
A robot stole Rosalie Bromley’s job -- forcing her to take a strenuous job that exacerbated her existing health problems.
It was on medical leave when she saw a video of
@AndrewYang
.
My story on Pittsburghers supporting Yang:
JUST IN: Bob Casey endorses Joe Biden for president.
"As both a U.S. Senator and our Vice President, he has delivered results for the middle class, kept our country safe and strengthened our standing in the world," Casey says.
New: Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman readily admits he broke Senate rules and decorum on Monday when he refused to take up a GOP motion intended to block a Dem senator's swearing-in.
"Yes, of course I broke the rules. They were breaking the law."
New: Allegheny County says 28,879 voters have received incorrect ballots due to a "ballot image mapping error by the company contracted to handle the printing."
Sean Hannity should be immediately fired for this. Immediately. Irresponsible to new lengths from a voice who has spewed nothing but falsehoods for years.
Sean Hannity has already blamed Maxine Waters for the shooting in Maryland:
"I've been saying now for days that something horrible was going to happen because of the rhetoric. Really Maxine?"
Donald Trump is up by about 520,000 votes in Pennsylvania, but what did we tell you all day? This will change.
More than 1.6 million mail-in and absentee ballots have yet to be counted -- and those are going to be heavily-Dem.
Today, vigils were held in cities across the country to pay respect to the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. I'm threading them here, and encourage you to post the ones I'm missing.
In wake of this news, I went back and counted...
Of the 36 Post-Gazette reporters, photographers, editors and designers who had bylined work in the package that won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting, 17 have since left.
This is a phenomenal headline. 'NRA-backed' should precede every mention of a lawmaker's name if he or she wants to chime in on gun violence while accepting donations from the gun lobby.
Alright, Pennsylvania (officially) uploaded another 115K ballots (75K mail-in, 29K in-person).
Biden won mail-in batch 53K to 22K. That's 2.42 votes for every 1 Trump got.
But Trump won in-person batch 22k to 7K.
Trump leads by 192K with 523K mail-in ballots left to count.
Some more votes tallied in Pennsylvania.
They counted 122K ballots in last two hours. (116K mail-in)
Biden won mail-in batch 82K to 33K. That's 2.5 votes for every 1 Trump got.
W/ those, Biden closed gap by 50K votes. Trump leads by 209K with 598,573 mail-ins left to count.
Mr. Lamb, in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Sunday, said he's endorsing Biden because he's focused not only on who can win the election, but who can get things done and govern when they're in the White House.
Bernie Sanders’s brand of politics is flourishing in the Pittsburgh area. I talked to him about Fetterman/Lee/Innamorato and the rising tide of Democratic Socialism.
@BernieSanders
On The Ingraham Angle last night, Dave McCormick tested out a general election argument against John Fetterman that he may use if he beats Oz: ignore the hoodie and shorts.
"I think that there's a history there of a guy that went to Harvard and has a trust fund..."
For the first time in Pennsylvania history, voters aged 34 and younger outnumber those aged 65 and older. That's good news for Democrats, activists say.
Voting at Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh has already surpassed 2014 overall turnout in just five hours, according to NextGen PA (Steyer-funded group focused on turning out youth vote.) At Penn State, it's more than double.
Rep. Rodney Davis says female members of his staff concerned some congressional offices may not hire women as way to avoid sexual harassment issues. "Obviously that's not the right approach."
Michelle Obama: "Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is."
This might seem like an obvious observation BUT there are so many people who just don't understand the process -- and it's tweets/messages/stories like these (simple, straightforward and factual) that will be so important moving forward to inform a (very confused) public.
The outstanding ballots in PA are NOT new votes.
The 1.4m this morning are votes that were cast and arrived on or before Election Day. They have simply not been counted yet.
Hi, it's me. For those who don't know, I am a reporter in Pennsylvania covering the midterms & I'm currently on strike against the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, fighting for a fair contract with my
@PGHGuild
colleagues.
Today, I'm covering the election. See the graphic below.