It's Colom in Mississippi

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) experienced a Colom blow yesterday, when the AP, CNN, NBC News and other outlets called the state's U.S. Senate race for Democrat Scott Colom. He has a lead of about 5,000 votes out of over 900,000 cast, with 99% of the votes reported. Hyde-Smith, who realizes the math can't work out for her, has already conceded.

In a bit of historical irony, Mississippi thus becomes the second U.S. state to have had three different Black U.S. Senators—following Illinois, which has been represented by Democrats Carol Moseley Braun, Barack Obama and Roland Burris. In the early years of Reconstruction, most white voters in Mississippi were disenfranchised, by virtue of having been, you know, traitors. That left Black voters, who elected a majority-Black legislature. And since senators were chosen by legislatures back then, the majority-Black legislature saw fit to choose Sens. Blanche K. Bruce and Hiram Revels (both R). Colom now joins that list. He will also be the 15th Black senator in U.S. history, meaning that just 4% of the states are responsible for 40% of the Black senators.

We were going to save this for tomorrow, but we might as well note it now: Hyde-Smith's fate is a reminder that sometimes, karma is a bit**. In October 2022, Joe Biden nominated Colom to a seat on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. The Senator-elect would presumably be busy doing that job right now, if he had been confirmed. But, while Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) returned his blue slip, Hyde-Smith did not, thus single-handedly scuttling the nomination.

Hyde-Smith's very relevant reason was that Colom may once have expressed support for allowing trans girls to play girls sports in high school. Because, as we all know, federal judges are constantly hearing cases about high school girls sports. Hyde-Smith also said she believed that Colom had accepted money from those conniving Jews George Soros as part of his campaign for DA for the 16th Judicial District of Mississippi. She must have been watching too much Fox "News" or something, because she could offer no actual evidence for either claim. Colom sent her a letter insisting that he never said anything about high school sports and he never got any money from Soros, but she refused to change course. The failure of the nomination left Colom with plenty of time to do other things, like... run for the United States Senate. And we now know how that worked out.

Colom's victory means the Democrats and their two independent allies will control at least 55 seats in the next Senate, if you count Sen. John Fetterman (D-ish, PA). The Sen.-elect is going to be beholden substantially to Black voters and, on the whole, Black voters tend to be fiscally more liberal and socially more conservative. That is also a pretty good description of the voters that Sens.-elect James Talarico (D-TX), Adam Hamilton (D-KS), Annie Andrews (D-SC), Josh Turek (D-IA), Roy Cooper (D-NC) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) will be representing as well. Mary Peltola (D-AK) too, if she is elected. For this reason, the new Democratic majority should have plenty of room to operate and get things done. There are plenty of economic/good governance issues to work on. And while it may make for good campaign talk (or maybe not, given how things worked out), a Democratic-controlled Senate was never going to do something like get involved in high school girls sports, or funding gender-affirming surgery for 12 year olds.

Speaking of Peltola, there were some more vote totals released in Alaska yesterday. With 86% now reported, her lead shrunk slightly, from 4,250 votes to 3,975. That means that her lead is now smaller than the number of votes cast (4,100) for the other Dan Sullivan (R?). If she goes on to win, and the margin is less than 4,100, that will potentially lay the groundwork for lawsuits and much carping from the Trump administration. The lawsuits and carping won't achieve anything, but they will suck up a lot of oxygen for a week or two.

At this point, for the real (Sen.) Dan Sullivan (R-AK) to win outright, he would need to take about 56% of the remaining ballots. Not impossible, though considerably more than the 47% he's taken so far. Otherwise, he would be relying on the non-Peltola votes to break sharply in his favor (something like 90% of them) when the ranked choice processing happened. As we have noted before, a New York Times analysis of the exit polling says that most of the votes for the fake Dan Sullivan are actually Peltola votes. Media in Alaska agree. So, the real Dan Sullivan probably shouldn't sign a new lease in D.C.

When we last noted the Times' analysis, we expressed puzzlement as to why someone would vote for the fake Sullivan, who cannot possibly win, if Peltola was the candidate they wanted. Reader S.C. in Mountain View, CA, is acquainted with some RCV activists in Alaska, and contacted one of them. He noted that there was no apparent campaign to get people to rank the fake Sullivan (Dan J.) first and Peltola second, and he offered up this:

Based on discussions I've had with voters, I think there are three main reasons this would happen, and this likely happened naturally:

1. Voters used RCV as intended—they liked the anti-incumbent messaging and ranked Dan J. first, then looked at the remaining candidates and felt that Peltola was a better choice than the current senator and the even more conservative Gerald Heikes. Remember, Dan J. had previously donated to Peltola. What is more surprising to me is that more than 1,000 Heikes voters ranked Peltola next. This just shows how complex voters are.
   
   I'm reminded of the [Sen. Lisa] Murkowski race in 2022: Kelly Tshibaka (R) was the Trump-supported challenger and Patricia Chesbro (D) was the Democratic candidate. When Chesbro was eliminated, most of her votes (20,571) went to the more moderate Murkowski, but more than 2,000 voters ranked Tshibaka second, which was very perplexing to pundits. I found one of those voters and he said he voted for Chesbro because she came from the same community and he respected her and wanted to support someone from his community, but when we had to choose between Murkowski and Tshibaka, both of whom were unknown to him, he chose the person who most aligned politically.
   
   
2. Voters supported Peltola but were unhappy with the manipulation of the system and ranked Dan J. first to send that message.
   
   
3. Voters wanted to replace Dan S., but weren't excited about Peltola as a candidate. This reasoning would also apply to the write-in votes that went to Peltola.
   
   

We also heard from many other readers who had thoughts. Here are some of those letters:

S.E. in Cleveland, OH: It's called trolling and it's hilarious. Real Sullivan was probably assuming every vote for fake Sullivan would rank him second. Imagine his face when he found out a plurality of the fake Sullivan's second-choice votes went to Peltola.

Besides the extremely unlikely chance that fake Sullivan garners 50%, there's no downside.

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R.H. in Los Angeles, CA: Sometimes your age really comes through in your writing. I expected most of the fake Sullivan votes to be for Peltola. People did this because it's funny and they wanted to reward the fake Sullivan for also being funny. Fake Sullivan never mattered in a ranked choice state. It was a joke from the beginning and should have been covered as that from the beginning.

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D.S. in Lakewood, OH: They are independents or Democrats who didn't want to help Republicans, but wanted to send a message to Democrats not to try those shenanigans again. The protest without wasting their vote makes clear they know exactly how ranked choice works and knew they weren't throwing their vote away. I don't put it past them; Alaskans seem to be more savvy about voting than the lower 48 rabble.

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I.K. in Easton, CT: It occurred to me that a number of people are just uncomfortable voting for a Democrat. So some of them put down fake Sullivan, because it felt better, with Peltola #2.

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B.B. in Anchorage, AK: I thought I might clear up your confusion on folks that voted for the wrong Sullivan #1 and Peltola #2 in Alaska. Many of my friends did so. They figured the wrong Sullivan would be eliminated, and their second choice would be counted. And they were pissed at the threats of lawsuits and other bullsh** coming from the Republicans. They wanted to make it clear that they weren't confused. Luckily, the incumbent won't get to 50%, so this dangerous strategy will likely work the way it was intended.

People contain multitudes, we suppose. In any event, thanks to everyone who wrote in! In theory, there should be another fairly large release of ballots in Alaska today. That said, we have to assume that nobody's going to call the race until the ranked choice processing takes place, which is supposed to happen next Wednesday.

Thought for today: If Democrats can win Senate races in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas, that is, all over the South, what is to become of the Republican Party? They are going to have to do some hard thinking about that. (Z)

Another Republican Is Caught with His Pants Down

After all the Republicans from Donald Trump on down who have committed sexual assault (e.g., Madison Cawthorn, Mark Foley, Matt Gaetz, Tony Gonzales, Dennis Hastert, Cory Mills, Roy Moore, etc.) it is at least a little bit refreshing that the latest sex scandal was fully, completely, and totally between very consenting adults.

We are referring, of course, to Jensen Huang, the CEO of the company, Nvidia, that makes the chips that AI runs on, who is also a close friend and adviser to Donald Trump. Last week, the news broke that Huang was sleeping with a beautiful Chinese spy, Alice Huang (whose real name is Huang Le, and who is no relation to Jensen). Not only was it consensual, it was her game plan. Mata Hari would have been proud of her. Here is The New York Post's take on the affair:

Jensen Huang is not an elected politician, of course, but he is buddy-buddy with Donald Trump and is his key adviser on AI and trade. In addition, the issue of whether the U.S. government should allow Nvidia to export its best AI chips to China is a matter of deep national security. This decision should involve the president, Congress, and the board of Nvidia. It should not be based on how many personal favors Alice grants Jensen.

Alice Huang was a former executive at a company called Megaspeed International. It was originally Chinese but registered in Singapore to get around a porous U.S. ban on selling high tech products to Chinese companies. Some reports say Ms. Huang still runs the company. It operates a cloud service that allows other companies to run AI software without having to buy the chips. The New York Times has reported that the Chinese government recruited Alice to seek information on Jensen and influence his views about selling advanced chips to China. Trade secrets would be nice, too. Megaspeed's balance sheet shot up from $33 million in Dec. 2023 to nearly $3 billion a year later, with no explanation. Many people suspect that the new money came from the Chinese government, which is almost certainly in bed with Alice (but not at the same time as Jensen).

Nvidia's board has hired the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to investigate the situation. Of course, Huang #1 is never going to tell the lawyers the whole truth about his affair. Huang #2 is probably back in Singapore or China now and will surely decline any invitations to speak with the lawyers, assuming they can even find her. The Nvidia board has historically given Huang whatever he wanted, no questions asked, as long as the stock price kept rising—which it suddenly has ceased doing. The problem is that Huang ran the company single-handedly. There are 60 people who report directly to him. There is no #2 who could quickly step up and take over if the board fired Huang. This is a terrible way to run a company, but this is how Nvidia is organized.

As an aside, yesterday the Times reported that Huang also had an affair with (at least) one executive who reports to him. She is the 48-year-old Kimberly Powell, vice president of health care at the company. She is married to someone other than Huang. You know the old saying, if you see one cockroach, there are probably more of them. While Nvidia doesn't have a formal policy banning intimate relationships between employees, if Huang coerced Powell into the relationship in any way, that could be the last straw for the board. If it was truly consensual, he might skate on this one. The obvious question now, though, is: Who else?

Naturally Democrats see the affair with Alice Huang as a national security threat. So do Republicans, or at least they claim to. Outgoing chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Brian Mast (R-FL), the House Select Committee on Intelligence Rick Crawford (R-AR) and the House Select Committee on China John Moolenaar (R-MI) are "requesting" that Jensen Huang appear before their committees via video on Nov. 18 to answer a couple of questions. The Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Kevin Cramer (R-ND), has called on Huang to resign, because he is a national security risk.

Moolenaar said that Nvidia has "credibility issues" that warrant further scrutiny. This could lead to a further investigation of Nvidia and potentially legislation banning the export of advanced AI chips to hostile countries, including China. Given the need for funding the government by Dec. 11, there is no chance a bill could pass by Jan. 3, but Democrats will have no problem picking up the ball and running with it in January. Export controls fall under the jurisdiction of the Senate Banking Committee, which will soon be chaired by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who is no fan of China or the tech industry. This is going to be a bipartisan pile-on

Now here comes the political part. The Trump administration has been divided on its approach to China, especially on the export of AI chips. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is against selling them to China while former AI "czar" David Sacks was for it. This little incident severely compromises the credibility of Huang in these internal discussions. Donald Trump is always in favor of companies making money—as long as he gets a cut of it. Maybe Huang could smooth the path over by donating a nice chunk of Nvidia stock to Trump or his "presidential" library/hotel/condo complex. U.S. intelligence found out about Huang's long-running affair as early as 2025, in no small part because Jensen was either very sloppy or very arrogant. He was repeatedly photographed with Alice at public events as far back as 2023. He apparently didn't take Adultery 101 in college, where the first thing you learn is if you are going to have an affair, do it only with someone who has as much to lose as you do if it comes out. The U.S. intelligence agencies told Trump and Rubio about the affair early on, but Trump continued to keep the Nvidia CEO as a trusted adviser on technology and trade. Huang was with Sacks in the internal battles, a strong supporter of allowing U.S. companies to sell advanced technology to China as long as they got a good price.

This incident is going to open a whole new line of inquiry for the Democrats in January. They are going to want to know what Trump knew, when he knew it, and why he disregarded a critical national security warning from his own intelligence agencies. Did he rely entirely on the advice of a highly compromised adviser? Axios has a scoop that Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick was also informed about Huang's affair with the spy and also did nothing—even though he is the one who is in charge of keeping sensitive technology out of the hands of America's enemies. So Trump knew, Rubio knew, and Lutnick knew. Did FBI Director Kash Patel know? If so, did he take any action? If he didn't know, maybe he should have spent more time in his office in D.C. doing his job and less time flying back and forth to his girlfriend in Tennessee in government planes. Who else knew and did nothing? Democrats will have a field day with this in January.

This gets even more complicated if Rubio resigns shortly (maybe even this week), especially if he claims he is resigning because Trump refused to listen to him about Huang and Nvidia and he wanted to protect national security and Trump didn't. Rubio needs to put some distance between himself and Trump to escape the taint of his support for the war in Iran, and this changes the narrative to a different subject, and one where Rubio can be on the "right side." Also, with the defeat of 40 of the 41 ballot measures about data centers last week, this could give Rubio the opportunity to spin it as his being against AI somehow. He could put it as "I am against developing more AI in the U.S. and I am also against developing more AI in China." Focusing his presidential campaign on opposing AI rather than supporting the war in Iran would probably be a better strategy. Rubio has no principles at all, and if that looks like a promising path, he'll be happy to follow it. (V)

Democrats Will Run the 2028 Elections

The 2026 elections seem to have gone smoothly, but that is no guarantee for the even-more-important 2028 elections. Election deniers are still afoot and could try to sabotage the 2028 elections, when the stakes are even higher (and steak prices will be MUCH higher). As we noted Monday, thirteen of the fourteen most populous states have Democratic governors, which makes election shenanigans harder, but not impossible if a corrupt secretary of state gives the governor fake numbers.

However, anyone planning to steal an election has another barrier to breach before even getting to the governor: the aforementioned secretary of state. In most states, it is the secretary of state who actually runs the elections. Here are the secretaries of state per Jan. 2027 by party. Alaska and Kansas are not 100% clear yet.

State	Party	Assumed office	Result
Alaska	Lt. Gov Zac Johnson (D)	2027	Flip R to D
Arizona	Adrian Fontes (D)	2023	Re-elected
California	Shirley Weber (D)	2021	Re-elected
Colorado	Amanda Gonzalez (D)	2027	Hold
Connecticut	Stephanie Thomas (D)	2023	Re-elected
Delaware	Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez (D)	2025	Appointed by the governor
Georgia	Penny Reynolds (D)	2027	Flip R to D
Hawaii	Lt Gov. Derek Kawakami (D)	2027	Re-elected
Illinois	Alexi Giannoulias (D)	2023	Re-elected
Indiana	Beau Bayh (D)	2027	Flip R to D
Maine	Shenna Bellows (D)	2021	Elected by the legislature
Maryland	Susan Lee (D)	2023	Appointed by the governor
Massachusetts	William Galvin (D)	1995	Re-elected
Michigan	Garlin Gilchrist (D)	2027	Hold
Minnesota	Steve Simon (D)	2015	Re-elected
Nevada	Cisco Aguilar (D)	2023	Re-elected
New Jersey	Shirley Emehelu (D)	2026	Appointed by the governor
New Mexico	Lopez Askin (D)	2027	Hold
New York	Walter Mosley (D)	2024	Appointed by the governor
North Carolina	Elaine Marshall (D)	1997	No election
Ohio	Allison Russo (D)	2027	Flip R to D
Oregon	Tobias Read (D)	2025	No election
Rhode Island	Gregg Amore (D)	2023	Re-elected
Vermont	Sarah Copeland Hanzas (D)	2023	Re-elected
Virginia	Candi King (D)	2026	Appointed by the governor
Washington	Steve Hobbs (D)	2021	No election
Wisconsin	JoCasta Zamarripa (D)	2027	Hold
Alabama	Caroleene Dobson (R)	2027	Hold
Arkansas	Kim Hammer (R)	2027	Hold
Florida	Cord Byrd (R)	2023	Appointed by the governor
Idaho	Phil McGrane (R)	2023	Re-elected
Kansas	Pat Proctor (R)	2019	?
Iowa	Paul Pate (R)	2015	Re-elected
Kentucky	Michael Adams (R)	2020	No election
Louisiana	Nancy Landry (R)	2024	No election
Mississippi	Michael D. Watson Jr. (R)	2020	No election
Missouri	Denny Hoskins (R)	2025	No election
Montana	Christi Jacobsen (R)	2021	No election
Nebraska	Scott Petersen (R)	2027	Hold
New Hampshire	David Scanlan (R)	2022	Elected by the legislature
North Dakota	Michael Howe (R)	2023	Re-elected
Oklahoma	Benjamin Lepak (R)	2026	Appointed by the governor
Pennsylvania	Al Schmidt (R)	2023	Appointed by the governor
South Carolina	Mark Hammond (R)	2003	Re-elected
South Dakota	Heather Baxter (R)	2027	Hold
Tennessee	Tre Hargett (R)	2009	Elected by the legislature
Texas	Robert Howden (R)	2026	Appointed by the governor
Utah	Lt Gov. Deidre Henderson (R)	2021	No election
West Virginia	Kris Warner (R)	2025	No election
Wyoming	Robert Short (R)	2027	Hold

Democrats flipped Georgia, Indiana, and Ohio, and will effectively flip Alaska if Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins is elected governor because his running mate, Zac Johnson (D), will then become lieutenant governor. In Alaska, the lieutenant governor runs elections. Those Alaskans are smart. Not only do they have four-way ranked-choice general elections to prevent spoilers from affecting the results, but they give the lieutentant governor something to do all day by handling elections (and save money by not having to pay a secretary of state). If you are curious about what powers lieutenant governors have in all 50 states, here is a nice table showing them. It varies quite a bit by state.

In 2028, Democrats will control election administration in 16 of the 17 states with the closest margins in 2024. The one exception is North Carolina, where the Republican-controlled legislature gutted the powers of Democratic officials in 2024. However, they gave the power to the Board of Elections, which now has a Democratic majority.

Secretaries of state must follow laws made by the state legislatures on things like when early voting is and whether ID is needed to vote, but they do control the nuts and bolts of voting, like how many ballot drop boxes will be placed and where, and how they will be monitored. With new Democratic trifectas in the key swing states of Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Democratic lawmakers could make voting easier by increasing early voting days and hours and more.

The only populous states with a Republican secretary of state are Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas. Gov.-elect Byron Donalds (R) will get to appoint the new Florida secretary of state. The current Pennsylvania secretary of state is Al Schmidt (R). He is a straight shooter and was appointed by Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA). He has denounced election deniers and called Donald Trump's claims "completely ridiculous." In Texas, Robert Howden's term ends Jan. 19, 2027. Then, Gov. Gina Hinojosa (D-TX) will submit a nomination to the Texas Senate for confirmation. So, in practice, the only big state where there could be monkey business in 2028 is Florida. (V)

The Democrats Have Their Sights Trained on Kristi Noem

Kristi Noem was having a great time—with her lover Corey Lewandowski and their luxurious flying bedroom—until Donald Trump got tried of them and fired her. Having murdered her dog and divorced her somewhat, er, eccentric, husband, at least she was past all this and could move on. Or maybe not. The Democrats have other plans for her come January. Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, tweeted: "Noem, Markwayne, Miller, Homan, Bovino, what's up? Clear your schedule."

Noem was one of the key architects of the mass deportations that have been going on in Trump v2.0, and much of what she did was probably illegal. She was a small-town girl who was elected Snow Queen in high school, was elected to the South Dakota House, the U.S. House, and was governor of South Dakota when Trump snatched her up to make her secretary of Homeland Security. By all measures, it went to her head and she forgot (or never knew) that Trump picked her not because she was an expert on homeland security, but because she is very pretty and he falls for that. She also mixed with bad company (Lewandowski). She was in way over her head and became much too arrogant. It is about to be payback time.

Rep. Benny Thompson (D-MS), who will chair the House Homeland Security Committee in January, is going to investigate the hell out of her. First, he wants to investigate every murder a DHS agent committed and every death at a DHS facility while she was secretary. Second, Trump's BBB gave her a gargantuan budget and free rein to spend it. She (with the help from Lewandowski) made some choices they are now going to have to account for. One of them was the flying bedroom, which ultimately cost the government $108 million as a result of a no-bid contract from a company run by donor William Walters. She is going to have to explain why she couldn't travel commercial or simple chartered jets when she needed to go somewhere that didn't have commercial service.

Thompson suspects that an agency with so much money, and with such an inexperienced person running it, is bound to have done a lot of... irregularities, and that Noem was probably not very good at hiding her tracks either. She expanded ICE's detention capacity enormously. Was there competitive bidding for all the facilities? Did she choose the best bids in all cases? Did any of her donors bid and how did they do? These are questions Thompson wants answered and more.

Another area Thompson is interested in is how much training ICE agents got before they were put out in the field. Besides learning how to shoot people, were they taught about the law and what agents may and may not do? Were they taught that bystanders every legal right to witness and record ICE operations in public, as long as they do not prevent the officers from doing their work? He also wants to know how she dealt with whistleblowers who alerted her that agents were breaking the law. Finally, there might be a question or two about the $220 million ad campaign starring herself, all gussied up, on a horse. Oh, and the no-bid contract went to a brand-new company run by people with close ties to her. And to top it off, she commissioned a gold statue of herself and the horse—at taxpayer expense of course.

It should be interesting to see how many times she pleads the Fifth Amendment and how many times she pleads ignorance. (V)

Democrats Need a Lawyer

No, not to defend themselves in court. They want one to go on offense. While the Oversight Committee will have its own legal staff to handle its own investigations, the House as a whole has a general counsel, who will play a major role in the expected constitutional clash with Executive Branch. House Democrats expect Donald Trump to refuse to allow members of the administration to testify before Congress and also expect him to refuse to provide any documents that have been subpoenaed. They expect maximum stonewalling on everything.

The House general counsel will be the Democrats' top lawyer, the one who plans and executes their legal strategy, keeping in mind how the Supreme Court might rule on the various cases and the implications for a future Democratic president should Republicans take the House in 2028 or 2030.

In addition, the Democrats want to take back the power that the Constitution grants to the Legislative Branch. Trump is likely to refuse to give up a smidgen of power, and there will be endless court battles. The general counsel will be the mastermind who has to oversee all of this and interface with the committee lawyers.

Most previous speakers have come up through the ranks as appropriators. They were experts on where the money came from and where it went. Hakeem Jeffries, a lawyer by training, came up through the Judiciary Committee. This gives him an advantage other speakers didn't have: He understands the law better than they did and can speak Middle English with other lawyers. Another thing he has going for him is the incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who spent 25 years as a professor of constitutional law at American University in D.C. before getting into politics. Raskin was the lead manager in Trump's second impeachment. The general counsel, Jeffries and Raskin are going to be spending a lot of time together plotting their legal strategy. But first they have to hire the general counsel. Fortunately, the search is already underway. Perhaps Jack Smith is available? (V)

Measles Is Not Measly Anymore

Thanks to the efforts of Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr., measles is great again. A decades-long effort to eradicate the fast-spreading disease has been laid to waste by his anti-vaccine activism, with over 5,400 cases reported this year alone and probably countless cases not reported. Measles is not a joke. One in five unvaccinated people per thousand who get it end up in the hospital. One to three unvaccinated people per thousand who get it die. Deaths are most common in young children.

The U.S. had the status of a measles-free country, but the World Health Organization is about to withdraw that status, putting it in the same category as countries like Bangadesh, Guatemala and Cameroon.

Measles is caused by a virus that is extremely infectious and which spreads easily in the air. Here is a map showing where the largest number of cases are as of October:

There is no logical reason for measles to be making a comeback. There is a cheap and safe vaccine for it. For decades, virtually everyone was vaccinated against it and many schools required children to be vaccinated for them to attend. But through Kennedy's pioneering work in quackery, vaccination rates have dropped precipitously and measles has risen from the dead.

The Democrats are likely to attack the administration in multiple ways starting in January. One way is by sidestepping Donald Trump for the moment and impeaching Cabinet officers. The first attempt to impeach Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth failed because a number of Democrats were blocked from getting to the Capitol to vote by traffic and police. They can try again in January.

The next Cabinet officer on the impeachment list is probably Kennedy. He has caused great suffering and millions of dollars in damage due to people getting sick on account of his conspiracy theories and quackery. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen.-elect Dr. Annie Andrews (D) are open to impeaching Kennedy, When asked about it, Sanders said: "I am absolutely open to that. The bottom line is we need a secretary of HHS who is concerned about the health and well-being of our kids and all Americans, not involved in crazy conspiracy theories."

As a senator, Sanders cannot introduce a motion to impeach Kennedy. Only a representative can do that. However, as incoming chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Sanders can most definitely subpoena Kennedy and rake him over the coals in public and point out to the public what a menace to public health he is, which the Senator fully intends to do. The resultant publicity could well be the signal for a House member to file the motion to impeach Kennedy. Of course, Sanders could also just have a chat with one of his many friends in the House during a meeting of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. (V)

A Second Challenger to Fetterman Is Gearing Up

Word is out. It is open season on Sen. John Fetterman (D?-PA). Earlier this week, Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian born in Gaza who has never run for political office, announced he will challenge Fetterman in a primary in 2008, largely because Fetterman is a strong supporter of Israel. Fetterman is no doubt quaking in his boots about this.

However, on Tuesday, a much more serious challenge arose. Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA), who is about to start her fifth term in Congress representing a suburban Philadelphia district, said she was considering a run. That is politician-speak for "I am trying to round up enough donors to make a go of it." As an establish representative who is well known in the Philadelphia area, she is a far more serious threat than Moor because she knows how to run a campaign, knows donors, and more. Representatives run for the Senate all the time and often win. Considering how unpopular Fetterman is, she could likely beat him in the primary—under one condition.

The one condition is that no other Democrat jumps in. Unfortunately for Dean, it is likely that quite a few other Democrats will jump in. Her greatest threat isn't Fetterman, it's all the other Democrats. But now that a serious Democrat is basically in, the flood gates are open and we can expect other Pennsylvania representatives, state senators, and maybe a mayor or two to jump in soon as well. Pennsylvania doesn't have runoffs or ranked-choice voting, so Fetterman's best hope—assuming he runs, which he might not—is that there are so many Democrats in there and they split the vote so evenly that he could win with 20% of the vote. Because we would guess that 20% is about his ceiling these days. (V)

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