Dick Blumenthal

Pete Hegseth was the first cabinet nominee to the breach, leading Donald Trump’s collection of outsiders, populists and hellraisers into the Capitol Hill combat they can all expect to navigate in the coming weeks. And in terms of a first confrontation with the opponent, Hegseth handled his mission manfully — taking the slings and arrows from the Democratic side of the aisle with relative ease. At one point, exasperated Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal — you’ll remember him from not serving in Vietnam and falsely claiming that he did — said, “I don’t dispute your communication skills.” And how could he? Hegseth seemed more than ready to address the accusations from Senate Democrats head on, and the Republicans on the committee seemed unperturbed by their attacks.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is at the nice old age of sixty-nine. Considering the average age of a US senator is sixty-five, she’s essentially in the prime of her political life. But that hasn’t stopped the growing calls for her resignation.   Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal, who himself is seventy-eight, recently compared the justice to a pile of bones. “The old saying — graveyards are full of indispensable people, ourselves in this body included,” Blumenthal told NBC on Wednesday. He’s worried that unless Sotomayor steps down, the court will be left with a RBG repeat and the ascension of another conservative judge.

The media buzz surrounding the PGA-LIV Golf merger just won’t stop — and the Senate’s investigation on Tuesday did little to help. The hearing came across as more a show trial of moral posturing on an issue that few outside of the golfing community have been following. After nearly three hours, one question still remained unanswered: why should anyone care?  Senator Richard Blumenthal, who announced the investigation last month, appeared to be the only one in the room invested in the hearing, which included testimony from PGA Tour chief operating officer Ron Price and board member Jimmy Dunne. The other committee members came with a few obligatory questions for PGA’s executives or outright supported them.

Everywhere liberal journalists look, they see George Santos. They see him in fellow freshman Republicans Anna Paulina Luna and Andy Ogles, both of whom have recently been accused of fabricating details about the past in newspaper hit pieces. With the breathless coverage of Santos’s brief tenure in Congress, you’d be forgiven if you thought that the new House GOP majority was filled with liars and résumé embellishers — that’s clearly the big picture that Democrats and their allies in the press are painting. Something that curiously escapes national attention — like the multiple late-night “comedy” hours that have mocked Santos — is that shockingly, Republicans aren’t the only ones who lie about everything from their résumés to their religions.