WASHINGTON — An all-star team of Democratic officials is making up the host committee for freshman Rep. Summer Lee’s re-election campaign kickoff on Thursday night at the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers headquarters.

The list includes U.S. Sens. John Fetterman and Bob Casey, D-Pa.; Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey; and Sara Innamorato, the Democratic nominee for Allegheny County executive.

But Ms. Lee, D-Swissvale, may not have clear sailing to renomination. Edgewood Borough Council member Bhavini Patel, who quickly dropped plans to run for the seat last year, is considering challenging Ms. Lee in next year’s Democratic primary over her stance on Israel.

The first Black woman elected to the U.S. House from Pennsylvania, Ms. Lee has aligned herself with the group of young, liberal lawmakers of color known as the Squad, many of whom have joined her in being critical of Israeli government policies.

Bill Maher criticized the WGA strike during a discussion with comedian Jim Gaffigan on the “Club Random” podcast. Maher, whose HBO talk show “Real Time” ended its most recent season in April just ahead of the WGA strike, shared his thoughts after Gaffigan noted the strike might kill late-night television for good.

“They’re asking for a lot of things that are, like, kooky,” Maher said about the WGA. “What I find objectionable about the philosophy of the strike [is] it seems to be, they have really morphed a long way from 2007’s strike, where they kind of believe that you’re owed a living as a writer, and you’re not. This is show business. This is the make-or-miss league.”

The WGA strike started in May and hit the 100-day mark last month. Maher said he agreed with the guild regarding streaming platforms having to report viewership data.

“I feel for my writers. I love my writers. I’m one of my writers. But there’s a big other side to it,” Maher also said. “And a lot of people are being hurt besides them — a lot of people who don’t make as much money as them in this bipartisan world we have where you’re just in one camp or the other, there’s no in between. You’re either for the strike like they’re fucking Che Guevara out there, you know, like, this is Cesar Chavez’s lettuce picking strike — or you’re with Trump. There’s no difference — there’s only two camps. And it’s much more complicated than that.”

Mike O’Brien and his wife, Courtney, saw Harrisburg as a great spot to land their early retirements from the U.S. Marine Corps, for both personal and political reasons. It puts the couple close to family, in an affordable area with good schools. And it gives Mike O’Brien a chance to run against U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, a York County Republican.

O’Brien brings a Top Gun resume that he plans to deploy against Perry’s record as a retired brigadier general in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. A Marine aviator and squadron leader who retired last week as a lieutenant colonel, O’Brien became a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House’s 10th District seat Wednesday and will face at least two opponents in the Democratic primary in May.

Born in Philadelphia and raised in Elkins Park, O’Brien spent 20 years as an aviator and instructor after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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O’Brien’s wife is also an aviator, U.S Naval academy graduate, and lieutenant colonel. They were the first husband-and-wife team to take command of flight squadrons on the same day in San Diego last year — with him in change of a fighter attack squadron and her running an aerial refueler transport squadron. Courtney O’Brien, the Naval Academy’s highest all-time basketball team scorer, expects to retire next year, he said. She remains on active duty in San Diego with their 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son.

Congress is back in session this week, and Republicans are planning to focus on what they do best: fucking everything all to hell. here’s just a small sample of the bullshit they have up their stupid sleeves.

they’re going to try to derail Fani Willis

useless pantload Jim Jordan is up to his usual underhanded tricks again. he’s doing his best to help Trump by interfering with the Georgia Election Fuckery trial, and so he’s waving his arms and pointing his fingers and shouting about “defunding” Willis’s office (spoiler alert: he can’t do that). he’s announced he’s opened an investigation into Willis.

(External link) https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jim-jordan-launches-probe-georgias-fani-willis-ahead/story?id=102532160

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they’re going to try to fuck with Jack Smith

everything they’re going to try to pull on Fani Willis, that goes double for Jack Smith. Shouty McFingerpoint has opened the same obstructive investigations into The Guy Who Convicts Criminals In The Hague. Jim’s been trying to do this for months, and now he’s going to redouble his efforts.

(External link) https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/06-16-2023/doj-answers-jordan/

A Delta flight from Atlanta [GA, US] to Barcelona was forced to turn around due to a passenger’s diarrhea, which the pilot considered a “biohazard issue,” according to reports. Around two hours into the transatlantic flight last Friday, Flight 194 was reportedly asked to return to Georgia [US].

“We’ve had a passenger who’s had diarrhea all the way through the airplane, so they want us to come back to Atlanta,” the pilot reportedly said to air traffic control in a recording shared on Twitter. In a statement to Insider, Delta confirmed the flight had been affected by a “medical issue” which meant that the aircraft needed to return to Atlanta for cleaning.

“Our teams worked as quickly and safely as possible to thoroughly clean the airplane and get our customers to their final destination,” the statement read. “We sincerely apologize to our customers for the delay and inconvenience to their travel plans.”

ADAM DRIVER MAY be at the Venice Film Festival promoting his new film Ferrari, but he wants the striking SAG-AFTRA actors on the picket lines to know that he “stands in solidarity” with them.

To be clear: Driver is not breaking any strike rules by appearing in Venice and doing publicity for his biopic of Enzo Ferrari. The film, directed by Michael Mann and produced by Neon and STX, has a SAG interim agreement because it was made independent of the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and abided by SAG rules and regulations.

“I’m very happy to be here to support this movie — the truncated schedule that we had to shoot it, and the efforts of all the incredible actors working on it, and the crew — but also, I’m very proud to be here to be a visual representation of a movie that’s not part of the AMPTP, and to promote the SAG leadership directive, which is an effective tactic, which is the interim agreement,” Driver said during the film’s press conference.

According to Driver, the SAG interim agreements are beneficial because they “allow independent movies to be made” and “stop the bleeding a little bit,” providing opportunities for people in the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and SAG to work amid the ongoing actors’ strike.

He then called out studios like Netflix and Amazon for not wanting to play by SAG rules. “The other objective is to obviously say, why is it that a smaller distribution company like Neon and STX International can meet the dream demands of what SAG is asking for… but a big company like Netflix and Amazon can’t?” he asked. “And every time people from SAG go and support a movie that has agreed to these terms, an interim agreement, it just makes it more obvious that these people are willing to support the people they collaborate with and the others are not.”

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will spend Labor Day with two constituencies crucial to his 2024 re-election chances — union workers and Pennsylvanians. The president is scheduled to mark the holiday on Monday in Philadelphia, the White House announced.

That’s a city that has seen a lot of Mr. Biden, who is seeking a second term. This will be Mr. Biden’s seventh trip to the City of Brotherly Love this year, including holding a campaign rally there in June with union members and touring the Philadelphia shipyard in July.

And Vice President Kamala Harris used Philadelphia as the backdrop last month to announce steps designed to increase pay for 1 million construction workers.

“It makes sense that the president would spend time in Pennsylvania with a core constituency like labor, who he’s generally been popular with,” said Mike Soliman, a New Jersey-based Democratic consultant. “The fact is Pennsylvania is an incredibly important state to his re-election prospects.”

HARRISBURG — Private-school vouchers are back on the table in Pennsylvania. The GOP-controlled Senate on Wednesday again approved a $100 million initiative — this time in a 28-19 vote — that would allow some students in Pennsylvania’s poorest districts to attend private schools. The move comes less than a month since Gov. Josh Shapiro vetoed the same proposal, one he helped develop.

In addition, the Republican-led Senate cut a number of Democratic priorities from the state’s spending plan, including tens of millions of dollars in supplementary funding for the poorest school districts and money to continue a popular home-repair assistance program.

Shapiro, a Democrat, led the state through a monthlong state budget impasse after negotiations broke down between him, Senate Republicans, and House Democrats over school vouchers. He created the program with Senate Republicans but soon realized he could not garner enough support among House Democrats — who hold a one-seat majority in the chamber.

The state Senate returned Wednesday for an unusual August session day to pass two code bills, which contain the legislative language that allows the state to actually spend about $1.1 billion of the money legislators allocated in the $45.5 billion budget bill signed into law earlier this month.

Little Donny Fuckface is cracking under the pressure.

the quadrice-indicted twice-impeached popular-vote-losing insurrection-leading judge-threatening lawyer-ignoring witness-tampering game-show-hosting serial-sexual-predating draft-dodging casino-bankrupting daughter-perving hush-money-paying real-estate-scamming bone-spur-faking ketchup-hurling justice-obstructing classified-war-plan-thieving weather-map-defacing horse-paste-promoting paper-towel-flinging tax-cheating evidence-destroying charity-defrauding money-laundering diaper-filling fluorescent tangerine jackass has always been a burst trash bag of personality defects.

but now it looks as if the family of raccoons that live inside Donald Trump’s head have finally chewed through all the wires.

yesterday, Trump melted all the way down and posted over 100 times on his crappy app:

A state Senate committee on Wednesday unanimously voted to move Pennsylvania’s 2024 presidential primary election earlier to March 19, but the panel’s word may not be the last on the subject.

The State Government Committee approved a measure sponsored by Sen. Dave Argall, R-Schuylkill, to move the primary to the third Tuesday of March. That’s two weeks after a large number of states will hold primaries on the first Tuesday of the month, dubbed Super Tuesday.

As the nation’s most populous battleground state, Pennsylvania already receives a disproportionate amount of attention in the general election. But its late April primary date often makes the Keystone State an afterthought in presidential primaries, as the eventual frontrunners have all but wrapped up their nominations by then.

An earlier date would make Pennsylvania a player in both the primary and general elections. “There seems to be a genuine bipartisan desire to give Pennsylvania voters more of a say in a presidential primary,” Mr. Argall said.