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Posts tagged ‘Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA)’

Sickly 89-year-old Dianne Feinstein wheeled into Senate, asks, ‘Where am I going?’


By: JOSEPH MACKINNON | May 11, 2023

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/sickly-89-year-old-dianne-feinstein-wheeled-into-senate/

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is not done convalescing after being laid out for over three months with an alleged bad case of the shingles. Nevertheless, after missing 91 votes, she made her return this week so that her Democratic colleagues can resume pushing their agenda.

The sickly 89-year-old former mayor of San Francisco was put into a wheelchair outside the Senate Wednesday, then carted inside.

“Where am I going?” she asked her handlers wearily, reported the Huffington Post.

After saying, “Hi everybody,” Feinstein proceeded to cast her first two votes since Feb. 16, helping Glenna Wright-Gallo secure the position of assistant education secretary. Despite technically being back in the game, NBC News reported that Feinstein still managed to miss two votes on her first day back.

A statement attributed to her said, “I have returned to Washington and am prepared to resume my duties in the Senate. I’m grateful for all the well-wishes over the past couple of months and for the excellent care that I received from my medical team in San Francisco.”

Feinstein indicated that notwithstanding unresolved “side effects” affecting her vision and balance, as well as advice from her doctors to adopt a “lighter schedule,” she was looking forward to resuming her work on the Judiciary Committee.

The Sacramento Bee stressed that Feinstein’s return is important for Democrats, who control only 51 of the 100 seats in the Senate and have a one-person advantage on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Extra to advancing liberal judges, Feinstein may prove instrumental in getting President Joe Biden’s labor secretary nominee Julie Su confirmed.

The senior Democrat was first diagnosed with shingles on February 26, then hospitalized until March 6. She has reportedly been in recovery ever since.

While there was bipartisan concern over Feinstein’s fitness to serve, several Democrats expressed concern not with what the illness was doing to their colleague, but what it was doing to their political ambitions.

In April, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) tweeted, “It’s time for @SenFeinstein to resign. We need to put the country ahead of personal loyalty. While she has had a lifetime of public service, it is obvious she can no longer fulfill her duties. Not speaking out undermines our credibility as elected representatives of the people.”

Khanna suggested that Feinstein’s absence meant pro-abortion judges weren’t getting approved and called on the public to apply pressure to have the senator step down.

Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota concurred with Khanna, calling it a “dereliction of duty” for Feinstein to remain in the Senate.

Earlier this month, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) claimed Feinstein’s “refusal to either retire or show up is causing great harm to the judiciary,” calling for her to retire.

Some Republicans highlighted Democrats’ utilitarian streak and denounced their apparent efforts to strong-arm Feinstein into retiring for short-term gains, reported CNN.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said, “She’s a dear friend, and we hope for her speedy recovery and return back to the Senate,” claiming that Sen. Chuck Schumer’s efforts to replace Feinstein were really “about a handful of judges that you can’t get the votes for.”

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said Democrats “should leave her alone. She’s sick. She needs to get well so she can get back to work,” adding that “the people that are trying to shove her out the door after her years of service ought to hide their heads in a bag. She’s being treated very shabbily and that really disappoints me.”

Some critics reckon Feinstein’s pressured return to the Senate this week indicates Democrats’ prioritization of power over their colleague’s well-being.

Sebastian Gorka, a conservative commentator who serves as deputy assistant to former President Donald Trump, suggested that the images of the sickly senator making her return on Wednesday “is your Democrat Party. Power at all costs. ALL COSTS.”

Democrats have not been sheepish about this fact.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said that with Feinstein back, “Anything we do in the Senate that requires a majority is now within reach.”

For instance, while ostensibly unwell and addled by memory loss, Feinstein may help Democrats raise the debt limit, which now only requires 51 votes.

Durbin previously stated, “There are things we cannot call for a vote. … There are measures we cannot debate and vote on until we have the majority advantage.”

Now that their power has been restored, Democrats might have the confidence to debate the issues.

The senator has indicated she will not run for re-election in 2024.

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Dianne Feinstein’s Cognitive Decline is So Bad That a Lawmaker Had to Reintroduce Themselves to Her Multiple Times During One Encounter


Reported By Cristina Laila | Published April 14, 2022

Read more at https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/dianne-feinsteins-cognitive-decline-bad-lawmaker-reintroduce-multiple-times-one-encounter/

Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA), 88, is in such bad shape that her own Democrat colleagues want her to retire before her term expires at the end of 2024.

In December 2020, The New Yorker, citing people familiar with the matter, Feinstein had been “seriously struggling” and her short-term memory “has grown so poor that she often forgets she has been briefed on a topic, accusing her staff of failing to do so just after they have.” Feinstein has now significantly declined since the New Yorker’s report and Democrats are worried she cannot fulfill her duties.

According to Democrats who spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle on the condition of anonymity, Feinstein’s cognitive decline is so bad that a lawmaker had to reintroduce themselves to her multiple times during one encounter. The Chronicle spoke with four US Senators and three former Feinstein staffers about the California Senator’s cognitive decline.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported:

When a California Democrat in Congress recently engaged in an extended conversation with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, they prepared for a rigorous policy discussion like those they’d had with her many times over the last 15 years.

Instead, the lawmaker said, they had to reintroduce themselves to Feinstein multiple times during an interaction that lasted several hours.

Rather than delve into policy, Feinstein, 88, repeated the same small-talk questions, like asking the lawmaker what mattered to voters in their district, they said, with no apparent recognition the two had already had a similar conversation.

The episode was so unnerving that the lawmaker — who spoke to The Chronicle on condition they not be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic — began raising concerns with colleagues to see if some kind of intervention to persuade Feinstein to retire was possible. Feinstein’s term runs through the end of 2024. The conversation occurred several weeks before the death of her husband in February.

“I have worked with her for a long time and long enough to know what she was like just a few years ago: always in command, always in charge, on top of the details, basically couldn’t resist a conversation where she was driving some bill or some idea. All of that is gone,” the lawmaker said. “She was an intellectual and political force not that long ago, and that’s why my encounter with her was so jarring. Because there was just no trace of that.”

Feinstein declined an interview with The Chronicle.

“The last year has been extremely painful and distracting for me, flying back and forth to visit my dying husband who passed just a few weeks ago,” Feinstein told The Chronicle. “But there’s no question I’m still serving and delivering for the people of California, and I’ll put my record up against anyone’s.”

Dianne Feinstein in February announced her husband of more than 40 years, Richard Blum, died of lung cancer at the age of 86.

Cristina Laila

Cristina began writing for The Gateway Pundit in 2016 and she is currently the Associate Editor.

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