Who really won in Pennsylvania?

For the next month, the DC Diary will be written by a rotating cast of Spectator editors. Today’s author is Teresa Mull.
Uncertainty in the Keystone State
The Republican primary race for Pennsylvania’s US Senate seat has been dragging on for months and continues to be drawn-out, as the result of Tuesday’s election are still undecided. “Ultra MAGA” candidate Kathy Barnette made a surprise surge in the final week of the campaign, but it’s looking to have been too little, too late, as Barnette fades behind Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick, who have led the field since the beginning. This race…

For the next month, the DC Diary will be written by a rotating cast of Spectator editors. Today’s author is Teresa Mull.

Uncertainty in the Keystone State

The Republican primary race for Pennsylvania’s US Senate seat has been dragging on for months and continues to be drawn-out, as the result of Tuesday’s election are still undecided. “Ultra MAGA” candidate Kathy Barnette made a surprise surge in the final week of the campaign, but it’s looking to have been too little, too late, as Barnette fades behind Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick, who have led the field since the beginning. This race has been one of the most closely watched and covered of all, as its outcome will be critical in deciding which party controls the Senate after the November general election.

As absentee ballots continue to trickle in, Politico reports “it may be weeks before we know who won.” What we do know is that whoever wins the GOP race will face Democrat John Fetterman, whose decisive victory is “reinvigorating Democrats’ hopes of holding on to a congressional majority in November, keeping President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda alive in the process,” according to the Washington Examiner.

In other primary news, Pennsylvania state senator Doug Mastriano won the primary race for governor, scoring Trump’s last-minute endorsement. Some Republicans reportedly consider Mastriano a far-right “liability,” but, obviously, most of them don’t.

North Carolina’s incumbent congressman Madison Cawthorn, the young “pro-Trump firebrand” and one-time “rising star” of the Republican Party, has had his fire snuffed out. Cawthorn fell to state senator Chuck Edwards amid “self-inflicted controversies.”

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The ‘Age of Scarcity’ and rationing loom

Global GDP is about to lose $1.6 trillion, an alarming Bloomberg Economics report forecasts, basing its dismal outlook on the war in Ukraine and continued supply chain shortages that have resulted from Covid lockdowns. The question of recession is now not a matter of “if” but “when?”

Americans are feeling the effects of inflation (set to hit a forty-year high) and economic turmoil most notably at the gas pumps and in searching store shelves. Gas stations are preparing pumps to accommodate $10 a gallon pricing, while some stations have already run out of fuel.

The baby formula shortage continues to cause nationwide panic, as parents struggle to feed their infants. According to CNN, two children in Memphis have been hospitalized “because their specialty formula is out of stock.”

The Democrats’ response? “House Democrats have unveiled a $28 million emergency spending bill to address the shortage of infant formula in the United States,” reports ABC. But notice they don’t say “to produce more infant formula.” The bill is nothing more than the Biden administration throwing money at a problem so the Democrats can show they’re “doing something” about the shortage. In reality, the money will go to the FDA, because it’s not like “bureaucratic bungling” caused this shortage in the first place or anything.

Disinformation Board paused

The Biden administration’s “Disinformation Governance Board,” dubbed by many, even leftists, as a dystopian Ministry of Truth, has had its wings clipped after the Department of Homeland Security unveiled the new bureau just three weeks ago.

The rollout of the new board was itself lacking a lot of information, and a DHS fact sheet admitted shortly after announcing the board, “There has been confusion about the working group, its role, and its activities. The reaction to this working group has prompted DHS to assess what steps we should take to build the trust needed for the Department to be effective in this space.”

The DHS can save itself the trouble of assessing next steps, as Nina Jankowicz, the administration’s pick to lead the task force, has resigned already, and the Disinformation Governance Board has been “paused” amid ongoing backlash.

Taylor Lorenz, the Washington Post‘s “internet culture” reporter and an expert on spreading disinformation, is coming to Jankowicz’s defense, claiming she is a “victim” of coordinated right-wing attacks — which, evidently, Jankowicz was not qualified to squelch, despite being a “well-known figure in the field of fighting disinformation and extremism.”