Octogenarian Dianne Feinstein Disappoints on Filibuster Reform, and the Left Discovers a Need for Term Limits

AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool

I was just reading this on a blog called “Red Blue Divide”:

Dianne Feinstein is once again making her way through the democratic process to represent the people of California in the United States Senate.

She began her political career almost 50 years ago, in 1970 working as a San Francisco Supervisor. From there she pivoted to become the mayor of San Francisco and has been a United States senator since 1992.

With contemporaries like Maxine Waters and Kamala Harris being some of the other high profile politicians that hail from her home state, Feinstein’s far left politics hardly seem out of place on the left coast. However, the prospect of her possibly winning yet another senatorial race has even Democrats asking if it’s time to change out the old guard.

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Was this published yesterday? Not quite. It was written and posted in 2018, when Feinstein was 84 years old. She had just won the California primary election for the term she is now in her fourth year of serving.

Feinstein is 88. The oldest female sitting Senator.

When the Recall of California Governor Gavin Newsom achieved its requisite amount of signatures to qualify for the ballot, part of Newsom’s pandering song and dance was to say he would name a Black woman to fill Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat.

The next logical question was: Is Sen. Dianne Feinstein planning to retire?

When Feinstein was asked what Newsom meant, she said she didn’t know, and let it be known that she was not retiring. She planned to complete her full term.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the 87-year-old veteran Democrat, insisted on Tuesday that she is committed to serving out her full term in office even after California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he had a list of “multiple” potential replacements and would appoint a Black woman to replace her should she retire.

“There’s nothing to it,” Feinstein told CNN on Tuesday about Democratic governor’s remarks. “No,” she said when asked if she would retire before the end of her six-year term, which is set to expire at the end of 2024. “I have not discussed that with anybody, nobody has asked me any questions about it.”

“We’re very good friends. I don’t think he meant it the way some people thought,” Feinstein said when asked about the governor’s comments. The senator added, “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”

As she walked into the Senate chamber on Tuesday, Feinstein said “you’ll have to ask him” why Newsom said he already has names in mind to replace her.

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It was only a few months earlier that Feinstein was pushed aside as the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, allegedly because she was too collegial to then-Judge Amy Coney Barrett at her confirmation hearing.

It’s the Kavanaugh curse. We have fallen far when decorum is no longer required at a confirmation hearing. Feinstein has been hoisted with her own petard, though, as it was her late submission of Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony that kicked off that circus.

But, I digress.

The long knives have been out for Dianne for the past four years, but have become sharpened to a fine point since the 2020 Coney Barrett Supreme Court confirmation.

The New Yorker, which the last time I checked was a left-wing rag, wrote a hit piece about Feinstein’s “missteps” and possible cognitive decline, and questioned whether she was just too old to be in office.

Strangely, there are no cries for 81-year-old Nancy Pelosi’s resignation. This is despite the fact that Pelosi has cognitive missteps of her own, quite often slurs her words, holds bizarre press conferences, and almost lost the House in 2020, barely hanging on to a thin margin.

Democrats are scared, which is why they are trying to shove H.R. 1 through—but save for AOC intimating that it might be time to put Pelosi out to pasture, nobody is demanding she resign.

Feinstein is made of sterner stuff and apparently ignored the piece, because in January 2021, she filed to run for another term when her current one is up in 2024. Feinstein would be 91 years old.

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Suddenly, term limits are taking on a new importance to progressives, and they are determined to pressure Feinstein out of the Senate seat. But the weeping and gnashing of teeth was heard across the Potomac, when in mid-March, Feinstein claimed she was open to filibuster reform, then two months later, said that it was the first time she had heard of it.

Now that Biden’s agenda is on the line and looking to tap out, nuking the filibuster has become even more critical to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-Feckless). While Democrat and Union leadership are attempting to break the knee caps of WV Sen. Joe Manchin (D-Stalwart) and AZ Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Stands With a Fist), they failed to check in with Grandma Diane. Guess when Democrats wanted information memory-holed, they weren’t thinking of Feinstein’s memory on committing to filibuster reform.

Oh, well.

The Left predictably melted down, as my colleague Nick Arama reported.

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This hearkens back to 2016, when then-President Obama, and many on the Left thought the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg should retire so that Obama could choose her successor.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fired back on Wednesday against critics who say the liberal justice should have retired while President Barack Obama was in office.

“When that suggestion is made, I ask the question: Who do you think the president could nominate that could get through the Republican Senate? Who you would prefer on the court than me?” Ginsburg said.

Ginsburg’s comments came during an interview with NPR’s Nina Totenberg at an event in New York City.

The 86-year-old justice is on the mend after completing a three-week course of radiation treatment in August for a tumor found on her pancreas. In December, Ginsburg underwent surgery for a separate cancer found on her lungs.

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As far as we know, Feinstein is in the peak of health for an 88-year old woman. But word to the wise: She best hire a food taster.

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