John Fetterman Is Making the Case for Worst Democratic Senator of All Time

7 min readOut on the Weekend(Permanent Musical Accompaniment to the Last Post of the Week from the Blog's Favourite Living Canadian)The first few days after an election are a fine time to walk the far shorelines of American politics and see what treasures have washed up while our attention was elsewhere. In Missouri, for example, there was this twisted, gnarly piece of driftwood. From The Guardian:In June, Ross allegedly gave his former campaign manager, identified by the initials “CS” in court documents, a bag of cocaine and Adderall. The two allegedly devised a plan for the former manager to stash the drugs in Secker’s purse or vehicle.On 21 June, prosecutors said, Ross asked for an update on the plot. “Taking it no luck with the substance of it all?” he wrote in a text to his staffer. “Substance” was a euphemism for the narcotics, authorities say. “I am actually creeping down to the car show right now and seeing if I can see your car. I have had it on me for a couple days in order to be able to take full advantage of any opportunity that arises,” the former manager replied, according to court documents.Holy Segretti, Batman. Now the ratfckers are stealing schemes from the plot turn of Trading Places.The Joplin police department in Missouri alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on 30 July to a public corruption matter. It’s unclear how the police were alerted to the alleged scheme. The next day, the federal agency gave the former manager a covert recording device, which he used to tape a conversation with Ross. The former manager offered to call in an anonymous tip about Secker’s car containing drugs and asked if Ross wanted it done. “If you can pull it off … pull it off,” Ross replied. Ross has been charged with conspiring to distribute a controlled substance. It’s unclear if the former manager will also face criminal charges.Mr. Ross won by 33 votes. Somewhere, Louis Winthorpe is smiling.The Wall Street Journal dropped a sandbag on the otherworldly phenomenon of John Fetterman's career in the U.S. Senate. Apparently, Senator Hoodie has dedicated his public service to not serving the public.One morning in June, three paralyzed military veterans in wheelchairs from rural Pennsylvania arrived at the office of Senator John Fetterman for a long-awaited meeting to discuss legislation that would improve their care.Fetterman’s staff greeted them with bad news: The Pennsylvania Democrat had to cancel. He’d told his staff he may have eaten something bad and wasn’t feeling well, according to people familiar with the matter. Less than an hour after his staffers met with the veterans in his place, Fetterman walked into his office, showing no signs of illness. He had an appointment he didn’t want to miss, he told staff: an interview on Fox News to discuss Israel and the war in Iran.Priorities, people, priorities.But behind closed doors, the first-term senator shows little interest in doing the job beyond cultivating relationships with conservative media figures and advocating for Israel, according to interviews with more than a dozen former staffers and lawmakers, as well as text messages and other internal records.I would watch this guy closely if the Democrats win the Senate back by a single vote. At best, he'd be Joe Lieberman in shorts and flip-flops. At worst, he'd be an actual Republican. In either case, and just on the merits, he's a sorry excuse for a senator.Weekly WWOZ Pick to Click: "Duke's Place" (Louis Armstrong) : Yeah, I still pretty much love New Orleans.Weekly Visit to the Pathé Archives: Here, from 1921, a man tries to alleviate a terrible drought by setting off a massive fireworks display, which was entertaining, but probably only produced a slight shower. Nice try, Daily Express.History is so cool.One of the more noteworthy suggestions of the past month came from Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. He told NBC's Meet the Press that he favored expanding the Supreme Court to 13 justices from the present nine. Clyburn is not AOC. He is the voice and face of the Democratic establishment in the House, where there seems to be a general agreement that something needs to be done about the carefully manufactured conservative majority that has turned the judicial branch into a White House doormat.It is possible that serious reforms may come before expansion. An ethics code would be a nice idea. So would term limits. (Hey, if the College of Cardinals can have term limits, why not lifetime appointees to the Supreme Court?) But ultimately, a few more Alito ex machina decisions from the shadow docket may force a Democratic Congress to act.Discovery Corner: Hey, look what we found! From The Independent:A group of students from the school The King attended, have discovered the remains of what is thought to be a medieval Viking church on an uninhabited Scottish island. Students and staff from Gordonstoun, a private school in Moray which the King attended, made the discovery on an archaeological field trip to Swona, a tiny Orkney island where only feral cattle live. The building thought to be a church bears similarities to other Viking churches from the 10th and 11th centuries.Ten pupils from the school took a 10-hour trip to reach Swona, which is about seven miles north of John O’Groats.I picked this story just so "John O'Groats" would appear on the blog. People of that town are known as "Groaters." Thank you for your attention to this matter.Hey, CNN. Is it a good day for dinosaur news? It's always a good day for dinosaur news!Yet the thousands of Nile crocodiles and hippos submerged within one of the world’s largest artificial lakes, not to mention the elephants and lions patrolling its shore, could not stop the researchers from finding their quarry: the scattered bones of a new dinosaur.Holy hell.Eight years of painstaking excavation and fossil analysis later, Musango matusadonaensis was named in a study published in July, opening a new window into a key period of prehistory and spotlighting Africa’s untapped paleontological potential....Probing the farthest edges of the park, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) away from the nearest town, the British, South African and Zimbabwean crew used a local riverboat as a roving laboratory, switching to smaller crafts to make the often-nerve-jangling journey to and from the shoreline. “I’ve never seen so many hippos in my life,” Choiniere recalled. “Kind of terrifying, but also an amazing wildlife experience and something we don’t normally have as paleontologists.” Yet risk has reaped scientific reward. Musango marked the team’s second major discovery gleaned from the region after unearthing close relative Musankwa sanyatiensis—a fellow sauropodomorph named in 2024—across two trips in 2017 and 2018. The pair would have co-existed alongside lungfish and crocodile-like phytosaurs, whose fossils were also found nearby.That's a considerable risk to take to prove that they lived then to make us happy now. But if guys who study animals that are long dead are charmed by living beasts, I guess that's okay by me. Stay in the boat, gang.Have a great Labor Day, people. Remember, people died to get you this holiday.I'll be back on Tuesday for whatever fresh hell awaits. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line and wear the damn masks, and take the damn shots, especially the boosters and any New One. In your spare time, spare a thought for all the victims of our current epidemics, including the killer countertops, and for the victims of the horrific glacial collapse and flood in Nepal, and for Rep. Max Miller's wife and child, and for the Iranian people, and the Lebanese people and all the other people downrange in our newest war, and all the people in ICE detention, and the Epstein victims, whose trauma is back in the news again, and the victims of the storms in Hawaii, and the victims of the Canadian wildfires, and also the ones in Spain, and the victims of the floods in Missouri, and the victims of the heat domes, and those affected around the world by wildfires, and the victims of the Venezuelan earthquake, and for the victims of the earthquake in Japan, and the victims and their families in the Tumbler Ridge school shooting in Canada, and for the shooting victims in Austin, and for the families of the victims of the mosque shooting in San Diego, and in Michigan, and in Virginia, and in Louisiana, and for the victims and their families of the shootings in Wilmington, Delaware and Kansas City, and for the families and victims of the mass shooting in Midland, Texas, and for the brilliant journalists of the Washington Post, and for the citizens of the occupied city of Minneapolis and South Burlington, Vermont, and for all the people in the flooded areas of southern Africa, and in the flooded areas in Ireland, and in the flooded areas of Brazil, and for the storm-clobbered, flooded areas of the upper Midwest, including my alma mater, and in Georgia, and for the people affected by the tornadoes in Mississippi, and for people suffering from the hantavirus outbreak on the Hondius, the outbreaks of measles, the Hegseth Flu down in Texas, the explosive diarrhea bug, and the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Harlem, and the victims of the heat wave in Europe, and for our LGBTQ+ citizens, who deserve so much more from this country than they're getting.