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But, like most Americans, we were split 60/40 on whether to stick to standard or daylight saving time.1 I strongly debated with you in the comments to stay on daylight saving time (DST) because I’ve been advoca…

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(Scroll down for more poll voting on who’s to blame…)

Stalemate in D.C.

The last I wrote to you about my semi-annual nightmare called Daylight Saving Time, there was hope that Congress was about to fix it. Now, there is no ch…

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The vote to oust McCarthy is the first time in history a speaker has been removed from his chair. It was done with Democrats and a few Republicans, who were angry about the bill passed over the weekend to keep the government open.

McCarthy said after the vote that he won’t run again for speaker. This was a surprise because he fought hard to get elected by the slim majority in January. He said he’s not resigning even without the power that he fought for so many years to get.

McCarthy said the eight Republicans who voted against him are “not conservative.” The California Republican also said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who led the charge against him, did it for “personal” reasons about his own ethics charge. He also told reporters that Gaetz did it to get “attention from you.”

McCarthy said, “If you have to lose for something, I will always lose for the country. It’s a much better battle to have.”

Do you think there needs to be order for the legislative branch to function? Who do you think would be a good speaker next?

Comment below and then read the story about Hunter Biden’s day in court.

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Hunter Biden’s 2A Defense

Meanwhile, in Delaware, Hunter Biden pled not guilty to three gun charges on Tuesday. His lawyer said in court for the first time that Pres. Joe Biden’s son — of all people— will go ahead with his plan to use his Second Amendment rights as a defense. Hunter faces 25 years in prison.

Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said in the Delaware federal court that he plans to file a motion to dismiss the charges for being unconstitutional. Lowell also told CNN,  “The constitutionality of these charges are very much in doubt.” 

Drugs and guns

Lowell didn’t say it outright but he will be using the conservative Supreme Court landmark ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Joe Biden has railed against the decision that says gun control laws have to have an historical precedent at the founding of the country.

As I wrote recently, the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Bruen decision made it unconstitutional for federal to ban drug users from possessing firearms. Hunter bought a gun and had it for less than two weeks in October 2018, during a period he admits he was addicted to crack cocaine.

Lowell predicted to ABC News recently he expects "the case will be dismissed before trial." If the charges are not dropped…

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The Senate voted unani…

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One particularly hot and humid summer, my female chief of staff determined to end that part of the dress code. She lobbied the House Sergeant at Arms to free our legs in the interest of avoiding heat stroke. We were thrilled when the hosiery requirement was lifted. It seemed a huge step forward, pun intended.

Even with bare legs, we still dressed in conservative business clothes. The dress code did not allow for sleeveless dresses, so we used scarves or sweaters to cover our shoulders when we went to the floor. We respected the institution and felt honored to work there. 

Fast forward to today, the Senate has dropped all of its dress code rules for members. This is not just about politics. The pandemic changed what is considered appropriate to wear for work, church and job interviews. Dressing to show respect is a dying tradition.

Sloppy Senate

The Senate floor was always a sea of dark blue suits and conservative dresses until Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) started wearing his trademark hoodie sweatshirt and shorts to votes. He got around the rules by keeping one foot in the cloakroom.

Majority Leader Schumer (D-NY) indulged Fetterman’s antics this week by instructing the Sergeant at Arms (Senate doorkeepers) to stop enforcing the tradition of business attire.

“Senators are able to choose what they wear on the Senate floor,” Schumer told Axios. “I will continue to wear a suit.”

The relaxed dress code policy only applies to elected officials. Staff and visitors have to continue wearing business-appropriate clothes. (Rules for thee!)

No more neckties

Fetterman took a victory lap Tuesday in shorts, an open-neck, short-sleeve shirt and Hoka sneakers (see the photo above.)

“They’re freaking out, I don’t understand it,” he told AP. “Like, aren’t there more important things we should be working on right now instead of, you know, that I might be dressing like a slob?”

The Senate dress code ending has drawn an unsurprising partisan divide. Republicans like institutions and tradition.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) joked she might as well “wear a bikini tomorrow to the Senate floor” because doing away with the dress code “debases the institution.”

Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) had my favorite criticism, describing Fetterman’s outfits as "the very sloppiest that a person would dress even if they're going to a gym by themselves.” She also said, "I've never seen civility enhanced or a sense of decorum enhanced by dressing like a slob."

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Some senators quickly embraced the relaxed dress code. Aides and reporters spotted these guys at votes on Monday without ties:

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A few blocks away on Capitol Hill, Pres. Joe Biden was exposed for actively helping sell the family “brand” for millions of dollars in overseas deals, according to bombshell testimony by his son Hunter’s former business partner.

Now I have a serious case of scandal fatigue. 

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I simply can not absorb any more new details about the alleged corrupt dealings of the leading 2024 presidential candidates. Instead, I’ve been delving into political history to understand why an overwhelming stream of scandals makes people lose interest.

Bill Clinton created ‘scandal fatigue’

The first use of the term that I could find was one month after news broke that Pres. Bill Clinton had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. 

Maureen Dowd wrote an op-ed titled “The Price of Scandal Fatigue” in The New York Times in Feb. 1998. Dowd never named Lewisnky or any details of the sex scandal that rocked the country after it was posted on the Drudge Report.*

(I share the story of my relationship with Matt Drudge that started before he broke the Lewinsky scandal for paid subscribers at the end.)

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The purpose of Dowd’s column was to sound the alarm on a report by Senate Republicans that showed the Chinese government attempted to influence the 1996 election through donations to the Democratic National Committee. Dowd wrote that Clinton refused to investigate China’s money flow because he was “at the center of the campaign abuses.”

She wrote:

In normal times, both outrage and curiosity would greet this majority report... But these are not normal times. The public is suffering from scandal overload in matters both financial and sexual.

Impeachment then and now

I couldn’t find anyone crediting Dowd with coining the term, but it got picked up by other media outlets as the affair turned into a criminal investigation.

Conservative columnist Robert Samuelson wrote in Aug. 1998 in The Washington Post that “scandal fatigue” was a possible reason that a majority of Americans at the time did not want Congress to impeach Clinton.

That may be the reason that support for impeaching Biden is declining at the same time as more evidence comes out about the family businesses, according to this new Rasmussen poll. Although, public support was higher to impeach Trump in 2019 and then in 2021.

The indictments, then and now

After Clinton was acquitted of the impeachment charges in the Senate in early 1999, ABC’s “Nightline” reported on the lack of political will to follow through on criminal charges because of “a capital suffering from acute scandal fatigue.”

The show explained that independent counsel Kenneth Starr was considering indicting Clinton. When asked about it, Republican Rep. Henry Hyde, who was the impeachment trial manager, replied:

I don't think indicting and criminally trying him after what we have all been through is going to be helpful to the country.

Trump of course became the first president in history to be indicted, now three times over. It has made him more popular with voters. A new CNN poll says more Republicans now believe that Biden was not legitimately elected than did at the beginning of the year.

Scandals divide us

The Los Angeles Times published an article “Suffering Scandal Fatigue” in Oct. 1998 about how the Clinton scandals marked a shift in how Americans respond to these types of stories.

The article says scandals up to that point had time limits and a strong moral perspective that worked to “reaffirm a common sense of right and wrong.” This quote was interesting:

“We all want a grand narrative, a lesson underneath these stories, but America is a fractured society, with so many divisions, and it’s hard to tell one tale that everybody can agree with,” says Herman Gray, a UC Santa Cruz sociologist. “When you lose that consensus, the story line can provoke anger because no one agrees.”

Twenty-five years later, there is not one accusation in the Trump and Biden scandals that all Americans agree is wrong behavior. The moral compass rotates depending on the politics of the person holding it. 

Adrenal fatigue

The Times story said the scandal fatigue was caused by “new information outlets--like all-news cable TV and the Internet--which pump out information around the clock, even if there is nothing new to report.” (Of course, this was before we had a much more fractured media and highly-addictive social media. )

Liberal columnist Michael Kinsley in 1998 thought that there was “an attention-deficit disorder plaguing American culture.” Kinsley said:

It began with the Gulf War, because 15 minutes after it was over, nobody remembered it. The war begat O.J., and O.J. begat Monica. These stories create an adrenaline rush that wears off-- and we’re all addicted. We need another fix.

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Perhaps too much adrenaline for too long is the root cause of scandal fatigue. The (Bill) Clinton scandals ended when he left office. The Biden and Trump political scandals keep getting wider and more detailed with no end in sight. While these are serious crimes being investigated, it’s all just mentally exhausting.

*My leaks to the Drudge Report

When I was a researcher at ABC News…

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While I’ve been determining the regular prices for Tide detergent and protein bars, Pres. Joe Biden is celebrating good economic …

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I covered Trump’s “rough” first campaign and was at his victory party when even he seemed to be surprised he won the presidency. This is my first time revealing what it was like behind the scenes that night and how it was like the episode of “Succession” on HBO.

Trump’s rough campaign

No one thought the former host of “Celebrity Apprentice” would really be president. I wrote in this article in 2012 that Trump should be taken seriously as a political candidate, but the polls in 2016 didn’t reflect that he would win.

I interviewed Trump two weeks before the election, and he talked about how the early voting and polling in some states boded well for him (Pennsylvania, Florida.) While his words sound promising, I remember thinking his tone didn’t sound confident in winning. Watch this:

I thought the Trump surge in the polls toward the end was due to (Hillary) Clinton fatigue. I sent this email to a family member on Nov. 5, 2016:

... it's all bc of the FBI investigation. Americans just don't want to go through four more years of Clintons scandals! She will still win. I'll be in NYC tomorrow to Wednesday for this insanity.

It’s long been forgotten that Trump got a voter boost from the federal investigation into Clinton’s classified emails on her secret home server. Now he faces many of the same alleged charges for boxes of top-secret, paper documents.

Everyone should read the full 37-count indictment against Trump. You can debate in the comments whether the charges are serious crimes or political or both.

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Election night 2016

I reported live for One America News (OAN) from the New York Hilton Hotel. Trump and his campaign aides were getting the results at Trump Tower, a few blocks away in midtown Manhattan.

The hotel ballroom of the victory party was not set up for a win. There were few signs or decorations. The party was subdued because there weren’t many people there to cheer.  For most of the night, there were more reporters than campaign supporters in the ballroom. Look behind me in this picture from that night:

There were large screens set up on both sides of the room broadcasting Fox News. People cheered a little when they heard certain early red states get called for Trump, but then they’d leave the ballroom and go to the bars. 

The cool place to be that night in New York was Hillary Clinton’s victory party at Javits Center, which was selected because it has a literal glass ceiling. There was supposed to be a big balloon drop from the ceiling when she gave her victory speech. I recall being envious of the OAN reporter reporting from Clinton’s party because I assumed he would be covering the next president. 

States called for Trump

I started reporting live at 7 p.m. and did live shots every half hour or so. I started to realize the election was going in a different direction than expected when a producer said in my earpiece that Pennsylvania went to Trump.

But while I started reporting that Trump was coming in strong, the supporters in the room were mostly quiet. Even when Wisconsin went to Trump, and we knew that he most likely would win it all, the crowd was in subdued disbelief.

A Republican activist friend of mine sat on the floor to use our power to charge her phone during the night. I remember her saying to me, “Is this real? He really won?” She had tears in her eyes. I felt like crying myself because I felt validated for the four years I had been a lone voice in Washington who said Trump was a serious political force.

If you stayed up that night, you’ll remember that we waited for Clinton to give a concession speech. She infamously refused. No one was sure how the election could end without Clinton admitting defeat.

Stunned victory

Trump finally showed up to the hotel around 2 a.m. to give his victory speech. It was clearly not thought much about in advance. Unlike Hillary’s glass ceiling of balloons that never dropped, Trump and his family entered from a balcony hallway that was not well-lit for TV cameras to get a great shot. I took this video of them arriving:

The background on the stage was simple for a huge event like this. The Trump family looked a bit shell-shocked. Here’s a video I took of them on stage.

I remember thinking at the time, he didn’t expect to win. He started by saying:

Sorry to keep you waiting. Complicated business. Complicated.

When Trump said that Clinton called to congratulate him, that was the moment when the crowd in the room realized the race was won and really got excited.

The Secret Service locked down the hotel with the newly-elected president, so we were not allowed to leave until about 3 a.m. As I walked down the street, I ran into Michael Cohen— who at the time was Trump’s lawyer and one of his longtime fixer. Cohen was alone and looked confused. I congratulated him. He didn’t look happy. He looked stunned. 

(Since then, the two became enemies. Cohen said of Trump’s federal indictment charges that he will “throw anyone and everyone under the bus.”)

Reuters MAGA hat photo

I’ve never posted publicly the photo of me at the top of this story in a MAGA hat because it’s out of context and makes me appear biased. The photo ran in countless newspapers and websites the day after the election as stock photo from Reuters with the caption:

A Trump supporter adjusts her hat as she waits at Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump's election night rally in Manhattan, New York, U.S., November 8, 2016. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

The real story is the campaign gave out the red “Make America Great Again” trucker hats at the election night party. I had a few minutes between live shots and picked up the hat. I tried to pull it down on the side and bend the bill like a baseball hat, but it was too stiff. I left it on the floor.

The next day, I found out that a Reuters photographer took the photograph of me because people kept sending me links of me all over the place. It’s still online to buy as stock photo here.

Succession and Calling for Trump

The shock of Trump’s “not doable” win in 2016 has been discussed recently because of how it was depicted in one of the final episodes of HBO’s “Succession.” I noted last month:

This show is loosely based on the Murdoch family and Fox News. The election comes down to an evil Republican and family that The Trump character in the show is a terrible person (of course, it’s Hollywood) who was only elected because a right-wing cable news channel called the election prematurely. 

I was in a similar situation in Nov.  2016 when the election was called for Trump…

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I wrote extensively about Edwards starting when a grand jury was convened in 2009 and through his getting indicated by the Justice Department because the mainstream media had protected him when he ran for president. 

Edwards made his cancer-stricken, dying wife Elizabeth a centerpiece of his election appeal in his bid for president in 2008. Meanwhile, he was having a full-blown, all-out affair with Reille Hunter, who traveled on the campaign bus with him and the press corps.

National Enquirer Exclusives

The only reason that Edwards got caught was that The National Enquirer exposed him in exclusive stories during the campaign. The media elite refused to report on Hunter until long after Edwards was out of the running. 

After Edwards was indicted in 2011, I called for the Enquirer to get the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. My stories led to a grassroots campaign that the Enquirer wrote about in these stories:

• TOP D.C. POLITICO LOBBIES PULITZER PRIZE FOR ENQUIRER’s JOHN EDWARDS EXPOSE

• QUEST FOR PULITZER HEATS UP

• IT’S OFFICIAL! ENQUIRER ACCEPTED INTO PULITZER PRIZE COMPETITION

Trump and Edwards

Now the Enquirer is involved in the Trump case because it bought porn star Stormy Daniel’s story before the 2016 election and never ran it. Trump’s critics say the tabloid’s owner, David Pecker, was doing the billionaire a favor.

Trump’s affair with Stormy Daniels, which he denies, was a decade before he ran for president. 

Trump supporters also reference Edwards because he got off of all charges after a six-week trial in 2012. The jury acquitted Edwards of one charge and deadlocked on the other five. The Justice Department later dropped all charges. 

The six federal charges against Edwards were campaign finance related. The 34 state, felony charges brought against Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg are business related.

Taboid or Journalism?

Of course, buying a story in order to bury it is not journalism. 

In the Edwards case, the criticism of the Enquirer was that it used “checkbook journalism” (i.e. paid its sources.) The Enquirer’s editor, Barry Levine, told me in this The Washington Times op-ed that “no paid sources led to any bombshells in the Edwards stories.” Levine also explained the details of how they verify sources, including using a lie detector.

I wrote for Politics Daily, which was owned by AOL, in 2009 and 2010. The site was bought by Huffington Post which then took down the site. My only story that is still online is this one: National Enquirer Officially in Running for Pulitzer Prize.” So, the material below is from my notes and draft stories, which are thankfully still on Google Docs!

Rielle Hunter and Elizabeth Edwards

Edwards was a senator from North Carolina when he was picked by John Kerry to be his vice presidential candidate on the 2004 Democratic ticket.

In 2006, Edwards met Hunter— a self-described filmmaker whose real name was Lisa— at a bar in New York City. They started having an affair. In December, Edwards launched his presidential candidacy for the 2008 election. His campaign paid Hunter $100,000 to make videos of Edwards on the trail.  

The candidate’s popular wife, Elizabeth Edwards, announced in March 2007 that her breast cancer has returned. They had two small children. Elizabeth held a widely-covered press conference in North Carolina and said her cancer could be treated, but it was incurable.

Sex and Lies

The Enquirer first reported that Edwards had an affair with an unnamed former campaign staffer in Oct. 2007.  Edwards told reporters that the Enquirer story was “made-up.” He said:

It's completely untrue, ridiculous... I've been in love with the same woman for 30-plus years, and as anybody who's been around us knows, she's an extraordinary human being; warm, loving, beautiful, sexy and as good a person as I have ever known.

Two months later, the Enquirer published photos of Hunter that showed she was pregnant.  This is the online version of “John Edwards love child scandal!” (They only published the best pictures in the print versions.)

The paper also published Hunter’s name for the first time, so she was easily finable for any other media outlet after that. Hunter denied Edwards was the father. She says another campaign aide— Andrew Young— was the father. 

Hiding the Baby

Edwards ended the campaign in Jan. 2008 because he had fallen far behind Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The next month, Hunter gave birth to a daughter (named Frances Quinn Hunter) in Santa Barbara, CA. The name of the child's father was left off the birth certificate. 

Edwards was not a subject of scandal after he stepped down, even though the Enquirer had published stories about his affair and baby. Both Obama and Clinton wooed him to get his endorsement. He tried to get a promise to be their vice president or attorney general. 

In May, Edwards endorsed Obama in a large, televised campaign event (watch here). He campaigned for Obama and hoped to have a role in his administration. 

Not My Baby

As the presidential race continued, the Enquirer caught Edwards making a secret, late-night visit to Hunter and their baby daughter at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in L.A, in July. When confronted, Edwards hid in a public restroom until security escorted him off the hotel grounds.  

The paper published the story of Edwards at the hotel with his baby in the August issue here (again, the best photos were only in the print version.)

Edwards tried to save his political career. He offered ABC News an interview about the Enquirer’s story. He admitted that he had an extramarital affair. Edwards claimed he told his wife and his family about his relationship with Hunter in 2006. He said Elizabeth’s cancer was in remission when he began the affair.

However, he denied he was the father of Hunter's baby girl. He said he was “happy to take a paternity test.” He told ABC News about the Enqurier’s reporting:

I know that it's not possible that this child could be mine because of the timing of events, so I know it's not possible.

I don't know if that picture is me…. It could well be. It looks like me. I don't know who that baby is.

Hush Money

Edwards told ABC News he didn’t know about money given to Hunter and his former aide Young, who falsely claimed the baby was his to cover for his boss.

I had nothing to do with any money being paid and no knowledge of any money being paid. And if something was paid, it wasn't being paid on my behalf.

The money was coming from two of his most ardent, wealthy campaign supporters— Fred Baron and heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon.

Federal Investigation:

The TV interview didn’t stop the feds from convening a grand jury a year later to investigate the money from Baron and Mellon. (Baron died soon after the ABC interview.)

Hunter testified before the grand jury in August 2009 about the $100,000 Edwards’s campaign paid her for videos and reportedly about the hush money.

Around the same time, the Enquirer reported that Edwards took a paternity test that confirmed Hunter’s daughter was his.

Admits Paternity

Edwards finally publicly admitted he was the father of Hunter’s baby in Jan. 2010 when the child was two years old.

It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter, and, hopefully, one day, when she understands, she will forgive me.

At the same time, Elizabeth filed for legal separation from John. Less than a year later, she died from breast cancer at the age of 61.

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Trump Factor

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Penguin Six Exclusive

YouTuber Penguin Six broke the story on Tuesday that the wall has been fixed with Joe Biden’s photo added after two years in office. The 2021 end date for Trump was also included. Watch his new video to see it for yourself:

Penguin Six, whose name is Andrew Leyden, said sources told him about the change in the display. Leyden first reported in a video in Dec. 2021 that the display had not been updated since Trump took office in 2017. His video went viral and led to conspiracy theories and serious questions about the efficacy of the government.

Facts or Coverup

Leyden told me that a reason for the delay could be that the picture of Barack Obama is now his official White House portrait, which was just released a few months ago. Biden and Trump are photographs (see his tweet below.)

As you know, I’ve been asking both the NPS information desk officers for information and the Office of Public Affairs (which answers media inquiries) for details since my first story on Oct. 12.

First the NPS told me the delay was because they had to take down all the panels to fix the one of the most recent election. A month later, the NPS told me that a two year delay way normal because that was how long it took to change Obama to Trump (but there are no facts to back up that claim.)

When I went back in Feb., I was given a laundry list of reasons, from funding to not having a vendor. The Park Service official finally said he was tired of people asking about the wall and encouraged me to tell my readers and social media followers to contact the Secretary of the Interior Department and the NPS Director.

Just the facts

In light of Leyden’s reporting, I just sent an email to the spokespeople with the nine unanswered questions below. I’ll update if I hear back from them.

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It could still happen when all the votes are counted, but it will definitely be a slim majority. There was no red wave. Pres. Joe Biden looks like the winner for losing the least.

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While it’s early to analyze the results, there are several reasons that everyone is surprised that Republicans didn’t pull out a big majority on Capitol Hill.

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When the private tax returns of billionaires were leaked to a left-wing group, liberals and conservatives reacted very differently.

Liberals fell for the political trick and immediately said that the tax code was unfair and the rich should get a tax hike. Conservatives saw through the conspiracy and wanted answers on how the Deep State at the IRS could,…

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