As the national security workforce ages, dementia impacting U.S. officials poses a threat to national security, according to a first-of-its-kind study by a Pentagon-funded think tank. The report, released this spring, came as several prominent U.S. officials trusted with some of the nation’s most highly classified intelligence experienced public lapses, stoking calls for resignations and debate about Washington’s aging leadership.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who had a second freezing episode last month, enjoys the most privileged access to classified information of anyone in Congress as a member of the so-called Gang of Eight congressional leadership. Ninety-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., whose decline has seen her confused about how to vote and experiencing memory lapses — forgetting conversations and not recalling a monthslong absence — was for years a member of the Gang of Eight and remains a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on which she has served since 2001.

The study, published by the RAND Corporation’s National Security Research Division in April, identifies individuals with both current and former access to classified material who develop dementia as threats to national security, citing the possibility that they may unwittingly disclose government secrets.

“Individuals who hold or held a security clearance and handled classified material could become a security threat if they develop dementia and unwittingly share government secrets,” the study says.

As the study notes, there does not appear to be any other publicly available research into dementia, an umbrella term for the loss of cognitive functioning, despite the fact that Americans are living longer than ever before and that the researchers were able to identify several cases in which senior intelligence officials died of Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive brain disorder and the most common cause of dementia.

“As people live longer and retire later, challenges associated with cognitive impairment in the workplace will need to be addressed,” the report says. “Our limited research suggests this concern is an emerging security blind spot.”

Most holders of security clearances, a ballooning class of officials and other bureaucrats with access to secret government information, are subject to rigorous and invasive vetting procedures. Applying for a clearance can mean hourslong polygraph tests; character interviews with old teachers, friends, and neighbors; and ongoing automated monitoring of their bank accounts and other personal information. As one senior Pentagon official who oversees such a program told me of people who enter the intelligence bureaucracy, “You basically give up your Fourth Amendment rights.”

Yet, as the authors of the RAND report note, there does not appear to be any vetting for age-related cognitive decline. In fact, the director of national intelligence’s directive on continuous evaluation contains no mention of age or cognitive decline.

While the study doesn’t mention any U.S. officials by name, its timing comes amid a simmering debate about gerontocracy: rule by the elderly. Following McConnell’s first freezing episode, in July, Google searches for the term “gerontocracy” spiked.

“The President called to check on me,” McConnell said when asked about the first episode. “I told him I got sandbagged,” he quipped, referring to President Joe Biden’s trip-and-fall incident during a June graduation ceremony at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, which sparked conservative criticisms about the 80-year-old’s own functioning.

While likely an attempt by McConnell at deflecting from his lapse, Biden’s age has emerged as a clear concern to voters, including Democrats. 69% of Democrats say Biden is “too old to effectively serve” another term, an Associated Press-NORC poll found last month. The findings were echoed by a CNN poll released last week that found that 67% of Democrats said the party should nominate someone else, with 49% directly mentioning Biden’s age as their biggest concern.

As Commander In Chief, the President is the nation’s ultimate classification authority, with the extraordinary power to classify and declassify information broadly. No other American has as privileged access to classified information as the president.

The U.S.’s current leadership is not only the oldest in history, but also the number of older people in Congress has grown dramatically in recent years. In 1981, only 4% of Congress was over the age of 70. By 2022, that number had spiked to 23%.

In 2017, Vox reported that a pharmacist had filled Alzheimer’s prescriptions for multiple members of Congress. With little incentive for an elected official to disclose such an illness, it is difficult to know just how pervasive the problem is. Feinstein’s retinue of staffers have for years sought to conceal her decline, having established a system to prevent her from walking the halls of Congress alone and risk having an unsupervised interaction with a reporter.

Despite the public controversy, there’s little indication that any officials will resign — or choose not to seek reelection.

After years of speculation about her retirement, 83-year-old Speaker Emerita Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., stunned observers when she announced on Friday that she would run for reelection, seeking her 19th term.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s monthslong absence from the Senate to recover in California from shingles has become a vexing problem for Democrats who want to confirm President Joe Biden’s nominees to the federal courts. Now there is some pressure from within her party, and her state, to resign.

With frustration mounting among Democrats, Feinstein on Wednesday asked to be temporarily replaced on the Senate Judiciary Committee while she recuperates. The statement came shortly after a member of California’s House delegation, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, called on her to step down, saying it is “unacceptable” for her to miss votes to confirm judges who could be weighing in on abortion rights, a key Democratic priority.

It will not be easy to temporarily replace Feinstein on the influential committee. Republicans could block such a move, given that the full Senate must approve committee assignments.

The conundrum for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., stems from his party’s fragile hold on power. Democrats are clinging to a 51-49 majority in an aging Senate where there have been several absences due to health issues this year.

A look at the politics surrounding Feinstein’s absence, and how Democrats are navigating the situation:

EXTENDED ABSENCE

Feinstein, 89, has been away from the Senate since Feb. 27, just two weeks after she announced she would not run for reelection in 2024.

Her office disclosed March 2 that she had been hospitalized in San Francisco and was being treated for a case of shingles. “I hope to return to the Senate later this month,” she said in a statement at the time.

Now, six weeks later, Feinstein’s office will not give a timeline for her return, even as Congress comes back into session Monday from a two-week recess.

It is unclear how long Feinstein expects to be away from Washington or whether she might resign before the end of her term. She has already faced questions in recent years about her cognitive health and memory, and has appeared increasingly frail. But she has defended her effectiveness.

STALLED JUDGES

Since February, Feinstein has missed more than 50 votes. Her absence on the Judiciary Committee means that Democrats can only confirm judges who have some Republican support because Democrats only have a one-seat majority on the panel.

The committee chairman, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has acknowledged that the pace of confirmations has slowed.

“I can’t consider nominees in these circumstances because a tie vote is a losing vote in committee,” Durbin told CNN.

There are currently 12 federal judge nominees whom Democrats say they have been unable to advance because of Feinstein’s absence. It is not clear how many would have Republican support.

AN UNUSUAL REQUEST

Feinstein’s request to be temporarily replaced on the panel is uncommon and the politics at play are complicated.

Committee assignments are typically approved easily in the full Senate at the beginning of each two-year session. Replacements are generally only made when a senator dies or resigns.

To change the committee membership, Democrats will have to hold a vote. While committee rosters are generally approved by a voice vote, just one Republican objection would trigger a roll call. Because of Senate rules, Democrats probably would need 60 votes to replace Feinstein — meaning at least 10 Republicans would have to help Democrats and support the move.

That is far from assured. Judicial nominations are a high-stakes matter for both sides, and the process has become steeped in partisanship.

Republicans have so far stayed quiet. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has said he will return from his own medical absence on Monday, after a head injury in a fall last month.

CALIFORNIA POLITICS

Feinstein’s February announcement that she will retire from Congress when her term ends next year has triggered a scramble for her seat in a strongly Democratic state.

Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff have already launched Senate campaigns to succeed Feinstein.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said in 2021 that he would nominate a Black woman to fill the seat if Feinstein were to step aside before her term ends. Khanna has endorsed Lee, who is Black.

Other Californians — including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — have come to Feinstein’s defense.

Pelosi told a San Francisco TV station that she’s “seen up close and firsthand her great leadership for our country, but especially for our state of California. She deserves the respect to get well and be back on duty.”

Pelosi suggested sexism has played a role in the way Feinstein has been treated.

“I don’t know what political agendas are at work that are going after Sen. Feinstein in that way,” Pelosi said. “I’ve never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate in that way.”

A STORIED CAREER

Feinstein has been a political trailblazer since she was the first woman to serve as president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in the 1970s. First elected to the Senate in 1992, she was the first woman to head the Senate Intelligence Committee, privy to the nation’s top secrets, and the first woman to serve as the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat.

While she often has worked across party lines, she faced criticism in recent years from Democrats who said she was letting Republicans off easy in bruising judicial fights.

Feinstein infuriated liberals in 2020 when she closed out confirmation hearings for now-Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett with an embrace of the then-Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and thanked him for a job well done.

A month later, she announced she would remain on the committee but step down as the senior Democrat.

Democrat Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), who is running for late Sen. Diane Feinstein’s U.S. Senate seat, is calling for a $50 minimum wage, defending her position during a debate Monday night.

The moderator asked Lee to defend her call for a $50-an-hour minimum wage during the event, noting that it is “seven times the current national minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.”

When asked how that would be economically sustainable for small businesses, Lee immediately said that she owned and ran a small business for over a decade, creating “hundreds of jobs, benefits, retirement benefits, [and] also health care benefits.”

“I know what worker productivity means, and that means that you have to make sure that your employees are taken care of and have a living wage in the Bay Area,” Lee said. “I believe it was the United Way [that] came out with a report that — very recently — [said] $127,000 for a family of four is just barely enough to get by,” she said, pointing to another survey that identified $104,000 as not being enough for one person, essentially classifying them as low income “because of the affordability crisis.”

She added:

And so, just do the math. Just do the math. Of course, we have national minimum wages that we need to raise to a living wage — you’re talking about $20, $25 — fine, but I have got to be focused on what California needs and what the affordability factor is when we calculate this wage.

Lee ultimately failed to answer the question.SUBSCRIBE

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Fox 40 notes that “a wage of $50 an hour would total $104,000 over the course of a year.”

WATCH:

Her call generated mockery from critics, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who asked, “Who not $500 per hour?”

“Okay, why not $100 then? $1,000? Why not just make the minimum wage a billion dollars an hour? Then we’d all be richer than Elon Musk!” Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk remarked.

“Economic illiteracy like Rep. Lee’s has been around for centuries. Every country that adopts it becomes a dystopian nightmare,” he added as others piled on:

Lee’s call comes as inflation comes roaring back with no immediate signs of relief, as detailed in Breitbart Business Digest.

RELATED — CNN’s Sidner: Hotter-Than-Expected Inflation Report “Another Sign” Economy “Getting Better”

Under Feinstein’s leadership, the intelligence committee conducted a wide-ranging, five-year investigation into CIA interrogation techniques during President George W. Bush’s administration, including waterboarding of terrorism suspects at secret overseas prisons. The resulting 6,300-page “torture report” concluded among other things that waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” did not provide key evidence in the hunt for bin Laden. A 525-page executive summary was released in late 2014, but the rest of the report has remained classified. [snip] In the years since, Feinstein has continued to push aggressively for eventual declassification of the report.

I was surprised how the news of Senator Feinstein's death affected me in a "life flashing before my eyes" kind of way.

We live in trying times. The stunning severe weather events across the globe this year are shocking and painful, but at the same time hard to grasp.

The political assasinations of San Fransisco Mayor George Moscone and Board of Supervisors member Harvey Milk were notable to me at the time as shocking and hard to grasp.

Tucker Carlson oddly might help younger people to understand how these events were painful. Carlson in his college yearbook listed membership in the Dan White Society and Jesse Helms Foundation. Dan White was the assailant, and Jesse Helms a long-serving arch-segregationsit and anti-gay senator.

Declassification of the Senate Intelligence Committee's "torture report" would be a fitting tribute to Senator Diane Feinstein.

It has been very tempting to say that Sen. Diane Feinstein has been extremely selfish in refusing to resign in the face of health problems that have prohibited her from casting a vote in Congress for three months and, unlike Senator John Fetterman, there is no indication that Senator Feinstein’s health will improve. She is 89 years old. 

However, perhaps she isn’t to blame. 

There is no mechanism to remove a senator for health reasons (only misconduct) and Senator Feinstein might not be aware of how bad her problems are. She has a much more serious cognitive decline than has been reported. From The Insider:

Dianne Feinstein’s office makes sure a staff member constantly follows the senator around the Capitol out of concern for what she might say to reporters amid her declining health and old age, multiple sources told

Rep. Adam Schiff will not seek a leadership position in the Democratic caucus next Congress, multiple sources tell CNN.

Instead, he is considering a run for Senate in California where Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein, 89, is up for reelection in 2024.  

This paves the way for Hakeem Jeffries to become the leader of the Democratic caucus. Jeffries is widely seen as the favorite in the caucus for the position, if House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who is the current leader, runs for a different position next Congress. 

Hoyer is considering a number of options to stay in Democratic leadership in the new Congress, including running for leader or for the whip position, sources told CNN on Tuesday.

Remember: CNN has yet to project which party will win the House as several key races are too early to call. But, right now, Republicans hold 217 seats — one away from the 218 needed to capture the majority.

House Democratic leadership elections have been announced for Nov. 30. Voting will take place behind closed doors via secret ballot using an app.

To be elected to any position in Democratic leadership, a candidate needs to win a majority among those present and voting. If more than two candidates run and no one wins a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes after the first round of voting will be eliminated and voting will proceed to a second round.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could make an announcement about whether she will run for the top House Democrat leadership spot this week, according to several senior representatives.

While Pelosi hasn't said one way or the other what she will do so far, the senior House Democrats told CNN they believe she will announce her decision before the House recess by the end of the week.

Why this is important: What happens in Democratic leadership elections revolves around the key question of what Pelosi decides to do. Until Pelosi makes her announcement, much of the rest of the field is expected to remain essentially frozen in place.

If Pelosi decides to run again for the top leadership spot for House Democrats, it will make clear that she is not yet ready to relinquish her role atop the House Democratic caucus. Pelosi, a towering figure in Democratic politics, commands widespread support among her members and is viewed as an effective leader within her party.

But if she runs again for leadership, such a move would also likely surprise, and even frustrate, many in Washington, including members of her own party, who have been anticipating that she might step aside for a new generation of leadership to take the reins.

If Pelosi does not run for the top leadership post, it would set the stage for a major shakeup in House Democratic leadership and mark the end of an era for Washington. The move would kick off a fight for her successor that could expose divisions within the party as other prominent members of the party look to move up the leadership ladder.

The Respect for Marriage Act marked a significant milestone in our nation’s journey toward recognizing and upholding the rights of the LGBTQ community. This legislation, which repealed the Defense of Marriage Act, brought Republicans and Democrats together to provide countless loving couples and families with settled assurance that they will continue to enjoy all of the freedoms, rights and responsibilities that come with all other marriages. At the same time, the bill’s cosponsors, Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and the late Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), worked in a bipartisan fashion to ensure that the legislation also fully protected religious liberty and diverse beliefs about marriage. You can visit our website at http://www.thelgbtsentinel.com

Previous Trump project expert Roger Rock has actually snubbed a demand from the leading Democrat on the Us Senate Judiciary Board for products connected to the Russia examination. Sen. Diane Feinstein launched a letter that she obtained from Rock’s legal representative, in which he claimed that the ask for records were also wide, significant as well as extensive. Attorney Give Smith mentioned that his customer currently affirmed prior to your home Knowledge Board, as well as was rejected his ask for a public testament by a board that chose to interview him behind shut doors. A records of that session might quickly be launched. ” On the guidance of advice, Mr. Rock will certainly not create the records asked for by you in your capability as Position Minority Participant of the Judiciary Board,” Smith composed in the letter. He ended the letter by claiming Rock’s choice to conjure up the Fifth Modification “should be comprehended by all to be the assertion of a Constitutional right by an innocent person that knocks privacy.” Rock is under examination in unique advice Robert Mueller’s examination right into Russian disturbance in the 2016 governmental project, as Mueller seeks to identify whether Rock had breakthrough expertise of WikiLeaks’ strategies to launch a chest of hacked e-mails from the Clinton project. The 66- year-old Rock has actually rejected having anticipation of WikiLeaks’ strategies. He has actually not been billed. Rock has actually been a forthright movie critic of Mueller’s, as well as claimed in September 2017 that Trump need to terminate the unique advice. The long time Republican politician planner claimed he would certainly “never ever affirm versus Trump,” a position that gained him applaud from Head of state Donald Trump in a tweet on Monday. ” Wonderful to understand that some individuals still have ‘digestive tracts!'” Trump tweete A government grand court has actually listened to testament for months from Rock affiliates as well as used an appeal bargain to one good friend, Jerome Corsi, that would certainly have needed him to confess to existing to private investigators regarding a discussion he had with Rock regarding WikiLeaks.

BREAKING NEWS: Sen. Diane Feinstein has passed at age 90. American BRF Fan, I was on your page when this sad news just broke. Watch MM’s PR surrounding this in the coming days. It should be interesting to see her angle for Gov. Newsom to appoint her to the late Senator’s seat…AS IF!!!! RIP to a giant of the US Senate.

__________

I'm right there with you, Anon, in expecting her to use this in some way. Saddened to hear about Sen. Feinstein’s passing but she lived a long, incredible life of service. 

Senator Diane Feinstein mixed up Senator Tim Scott and Senator Raphael Warnock. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks. Watch TYT LIVE on weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live Read more HERE: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dianne-feinstein-congratulated-tim-scott-raphael-warnock-senate_n_645d033ce4b018d846bc4a7a "Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s return to Congress is being clouded by more reports calling her ability to serve into question, including a new anecdote published by Politico Thursday about an alleged memory lapse by the California Democrat in 2021. An unnamed Senate staffer recalled the senator welcoming Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) to the chamber, apparently confusing him with Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who had just won his seat in a special election. Both Scott, who joined the Senate in 2013, and Warnock are Black."* *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt Unbossed with Nina Turner https://www.youtube.com/unbossedtyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews 230511__TB01Feinstein by The Young Turks

Sen. Feinstein hospitalized for shingles, office confirms

Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., has been admitted to a San Francisco-area hospital to receive treatment for shingles, her office confirmed to Spectrum News Thursday evening. “I was diagnosed over the February recess with a case of shingles,” Feinstein said in a statement provided by a spokesperson, adding that she is expected “to make a full recovery” from the virus, which causes painful…

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Diane Feinstein's extremely awkward, very uncomfortable exit from the political stage#Diane #Feinsteins #extremely #awkward #uncomfortable #exit #political #stage

Sen. Dianne Feinstein arrives at the U.S. Capitol Building. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images Feinstein, the longest-serving Democrat in the Senate, is in the midst of one of the most uneasy codas to a political career. Her extended pre-departure has, for many of her fellow Democrats, turned into an abject lesson in the perils of hanging on. “She’s still the state’s senior senator,” said one longtime…

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Democrats Urge President to Use Defense Production Act to Open Schools

Democrats Urge President to Use Defense Production Act to Open Schools

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urged President Donald Trump to invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) to ensure there is enough personal protection equipment (PPE) and testing to open schools safely in the fall.

The Speaker pushed for the DPA during a press conference on Wednesday to highlight the provisions in the Heroes Act which were passed by House Democrats in May but stalled…

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