Burns aligns with tea party but takes corporate lobbyists' donationsPennsylvania’s 12th District is best known as the late Democratic Rep. John Murtha’s district. In a special election in the spring, conservative Democrat Mark Critz took the seat. Now he’s in a rematch with Tim Burns, who proudly aligns himself with tea party extremism.
Burns’ tea party anti-establishment credentials are in tatters now, or at least they should be. On Friday, the Washington Post reported that Burns had taken corporate lobbyist donations that were laundered through the office of the ultimate boozing, schmoozing Washington insider, Speaker Wanna-Be John Boehner of Ohio:
One tea-party-backed candidate to get Boehner’s help is Tim Burns, the former pharmaceutical software entrepreneur who is vying for Rep. John Murtha’s (D) former seat in Pennsylvania. Burns has campaigned hard against Washington and has publicly dismissed his opponent, a former congressional district manager for Murtha, as a Washington insider.
His spokesman Jake Parsons said that the financial support from Boehner and other Republican leaders – he got $19,000 from Boehner – “has been critical to helping get Tim’s message of ‘fixing Washington’ out.”
Sure, I’ll address that, and I’ll address it very specifically. The specifics — the specificity — is in the process. When Gov. Christie got elected in New Jersey, they asked him the same question; he says “let me get there and I’ll figure it out. Let me just do this.” [GROANS from audience.] Because as a businessperson, you have to look every month at what you do. You have to look at the things that work and the things that didn’t work. You have to determine whether that’s the right course to be on or not be on.
And I’m always intrigued when people say, “specifically, what would you do?” Here, specifically, what would I do? I’d tear it apart. I’d tear it apart. I would want to look at every bit of our spending budget. Does it work or does it not work? Is it something we can improve on? Is it something we should redeploy those funds? Absolutely, there’s stuff to be cut. What is it right now? I can’t tell you.
But I can tell you this. I’m always amazed that people take this attitude that you can’t expect the government to work the way a business does. And I would put this just the other way. You could never expect a business to work the way the government does. [LAUGHTER.] And when we talk about all these savings and all these costs. [Unintelligible.] … the backs of the taxpayers. The government acts like somehow we’re taking money from them. The truth of the matter is they are taking money from us. Much as golfers [unintelligible] pennies, every single penny that goes into government coffers comes off the backs of taxpaying citizens.
So I think we have the wrong point of view here. Specifically what would you do? Specifically, what I would do? I would be the most responsible legislator who’s out there. I would measure twice and cut once. I would look at every expense and is it performing the way it’s supposed to perform, or this just another one of those government programs that has an endless life that we just keep adding and adding and adding. So the specificness of it is getting people there that are responsible, that have skin in the game and that have sweat [inaudible], that understand what it means to make payments out of your own pocket, not the taxpayer’s. That’s a very sacred duty, that’s the way we would approach this.
– Republican Mike Kelly, candidate in Pennsylvania’s 3rd District, responding to a debate moderator’s question asking him to name “specific” cuts he’d make in the government. Kelly used some form of the word “specific” eight times but never named a single thing he would cut. Nonetheless, Kelly leads his Democratic opponent, Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, in most polls, and Real Clear Politics has listed the race as “leans Republican.”
In the diplomatic ranks, trained professionals toil,
To keep the peace and tamp down foreign turmoil.
But for Greek ambassador,
Trump picked an artful dodger —
The grifting, drunken blackmailer Kimberly Guilfoyle.
A record number of women are running for state legislative seats this November, more than two-thirds of whom are Democrats, reports Florida Phoenix. Across the 46 states with legislative seats on the ballot, a total of 3,824 women are running — up from 2022’s previous record of 3,621 women candidates, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Women make up 35.5% of all state legislative candidates this cycle. Currently, women hold about one-third of state legislative seats across the country — a record level of representation but nowhere near parity.
“Prediction markets about the 2026 midterm elections have surpassed $1.4 billion in trading volume as Election Day fast approaches,” CNN reports. “This year has seen massive growth in the prediction industry, where people can bet on real-world events like sports, entertainment and the weather. While small-scale election markets have been around for a while, they gained traction before the 2024 presidential election and have seen huge numbers for the 2026 midterms.”
G. Elliot Morris: “Low-knowledge 2024 voters say they backed Trump by 8 points, according to our poll. Today they give him a net job approval of ?27, a 35-point shift. Compare that to Trump’s approval rating among voters who got both questions right: These voters backed Harris by 1 point and now give Trump a net ?24 approval, a 23-point shift. … Low-information voters have moved against Trump at a higher rate than high-information voters, by 12 points.”
President Donald ?Trump’s approval rating fell to a record low as Americans worried about high gasoline prices and appeared ready to punish his Republican Party in the November 3 congressional elections, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday. Some 31% of Americans approve of Trump’s ?performance in office, down a percentage point from two weeks earlier and the lowest level in ?either of his presidential terms, the four-day poll showed.
KFF Poll: “With the 2026 midterm campaigns in full swing and early voting about to begin, there is a wide enthusiasm gap between partisan voters, with Democratic voters 25 percentage points more likely than Republican voters to say they are ‘more motivated’ than usual to vote (63% vs. 38%).”
