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Steven T. Dennis

@steventdennis.bsky.social
88K followers 1.9K following 4.3K posts

I cover the U.S. Senate for Bloomberg News. You may know me from #FridayNightZillow, but C-SPAN is more my natural habitat. #Introduction I'm also @steventdennis on the other places. Opinions mine. Email: sdennis17@bloomberg.net

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Reposted by Steven T. Dennis
Mr. Dan Zak @mrdanzak.com · 04/10/2026
A Haitian man legally immigrated to Ohio, then was given an ankle monitor bc Trump withdrew his status. He threw himself in front of truck. The trucker, who voted for Trump, is haunted. “Pierre was doing what he was supposed to do. We did not do right by him.” www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
theatlantic.com
A Reckoning in Springfield
A truck driver out on his route confronts what the country has become.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 38m
You could offset by charging a hefty fee for each port of the mortgage.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 39m
Bingo
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 4h
Watching to see if McConnell embraces as a way to stave off killing the filibuster a while longer.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 4h
A 25% presidential approval rate is the point where you have to wonder about Senate impeachment votes changing. Trump isn’t there; Nixon was.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 9h
One thing about how Washington "works" is there are legal niceties to observe while paying gobs of money to politically connected people. Quids and Quos are supposed to be connected by at most a wink, not "hey I sent you $300,000 already and you better start delivering"
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 13h
One thing about Lee is that outside of SCOTUS, his legislative desires mostly have fallen flat. Save Act, etc. Winning power but losing legislative battles anyway may be radicalizing?
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 13h
He hasn’t quite returned to the guy who said on tape he wanted to get rid of Social Security and Medicare.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 13h
Fun fact: Mike Lee and Chuck Schumer early in Lee’s career - after he lost his home in a short sale - teamed up on a bill letting immigrants in if they bought a house for I think $500,000? A precursor to the Trump Card.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 13h
Lee was the one senator who endorsed Ted Cruz. He at one point was looking into changing rules to block Trump from the nomination. He did get one thing he really wanted: A conservative SCOTUS majority striking down Roe.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 13h
Mcds also running lots of chicken promos. A lot easier to ramp chicken production than cows.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 14h
Checked the McDonald’s app and a Big Mac near me is $7.19. (Ouch).
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 21h
One reason why I'm surprised wealthy people and corporations don't invest more in elections. The return on investment is huge. US spends less on elections than deodorant.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 22h
Mike Lee's transformation over the past decade has been hard to understand.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 22h
He said very similar in 2020.
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Chase 'Hutch' Hutchinson 📽️ @eclectichutch.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
After 34 years taking their collection from 1,000 to over 150,000 movies, Scarecrow Video’s beloved longtime buyer Mark Steiner is calling it a career after having helped shape Seattle’s (and the world’s) largest physical media store📽️ My story @seattletimes.com: www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...
Mark Steiner, longtime Scarecrow Video employee, is shown in the Seattle store Sept. 10, with shelves upon shelves of movies expanding out behind him that he helped to bring to the location over 34 years.
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Julie K. Brown @jkbjournalist.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
NEW: Maybe it's time to take a good look at all these deaths in the Epstein-Trump orbit. jkbjournalist.substack.com/p/dead-men-t...
jkbjournalist.substack.com
Dead men tell no Epstein-Trump tales
When witnesses, whistleblowers and accusers die, it’s time to look at whether they have anything in common. Here is a list of some of the recent deaths.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 23h
This is entirely because the US does not have portable mortgages.
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Keri Blakinger @keribla.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I’ve covered death row cases for nearly a decade and witnessed several executions. What happened to Christa Pike wasn’t an anomaly. It could happen anywhere. With another execution planned for this week in Texas, let me explain why. THREAD 🧵
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Patrick De Haan @gasbuddyguy.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
today, the fuel clock for diesel hit $50 billion- businesses and consumers have since March spent $50 billion more on diesel compared to the same time last year. adding gasoline's $78.46 billion, the tally is $128.6 billion more spent on fuel vs a year ago.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
People out here stealing ground beef like it's a Brinks truck. How do you fence something like this with a couple day shelf life?
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
It could be a miniseries. But every season would have an unhappy ending. Maybe the French could do it?
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I'm not sure anyone in US political history has had a life arc quite like Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former First Lady of San Francisco and current Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Hellenic Republic.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
💥BOOM! Samsung reported 3rd quarter profit of $80 BILLION, more than 8X last year's numbers, on its AI-driven memory chip windfall. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Trump admin's new rule adding prohibitively expensive new fees for "OPT"—temporary work authorization program for international students and new grads in the United States—is out. Would require colleges to pay $70,000 for year one. $30,000 for years two and three combined for STEM fields.
public-inspection.federalregister.gov
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
No idea
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 07/10/2026
Cornell University named Sally Yates, the former acting U.S. attorney general, to lead an independent internal review of a former student’s rape claim amid growing outrage about how it was first handled.
nyti.ms
Sally Yates to Lead Internal Investigation Into Cornell’s Handling of Sexual Assault Report
The university hired Sally Yates, a career federal prosecutor, to investigate how it handled a former student’s claim she was raped in 2024.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I learned today in the Washington Examiner that Roger Marshall killed a zebra on a hunt in Namibia.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
“We can’t eat road salt” -Troy Jackson. One line showed all the problems Donald Trump has caused Susan Collins. She’s bragging on carveouts she gets thrown by the Trump administration on tariffs, but his larger trade war with Canada continues.
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Noah Shachtman @noahshachtman.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I was told Zohran Mamdani would instantly turn New York into a crime-ridden hellscape. Yet murders are down almost 20%, year over year. 203 people have been slain, about 22.5 per month. In 1990, that average was *251 per month.* NYC has never been this safe.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Hadn’t heard this story before.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
They used very similar ads in 2024. (Brown lost but overperformed Harris)
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
go.bsky.app/HGA4wmR A good starter pack!
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Renting, but yes.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
President Trump plans another dinner for the top holders of his memecoin, which has plummeted in value even as he made hundreds of millions of dollars last year — more than the salaries of all of Congress. Last year, he spoke and top holders got a WH tour. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Trump Memecoin Dinner Returns as Democrats Threaten Scrutiny
The promoter of Donald Trump’s memecoin is marketing another chance for top holders to attend an event with the president, just as Democratic lawmakers threaten fresh scrutiny of his crypto business d...
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Korea says it's only agreed *IF* the project becomes economically viable. Which is a very big IF.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Korea disputes Trump's claim it agreed to spend $54 billion on Alaska's LNG pipeline; project announcement featured longtime backer Senator Dan Sullivan, who trailed Democrat Mary Peltola in first round of voting. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Korea Disputes Trump’s Claim It Agreed to Invest in Alaska LNG
South Korea has pushed back on the Trump administration’s announcement that the country would invest $54 billion in a liquefied natural gas project in Alaska, saying it had agreed to do so only if the...
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
A big part of the MAGA thing is to never apologize or admit you screwed up. (Roy Cohn’s advice).
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
BREAKING from @jendlouhy.bsky.social and Ruth Liao: TRUMP to announce $54B Alaska LNG plan backed by South Korea and long championed by embattled Senator Dan Sullivan, who faces tough fight against Mary Peltola in key battleground www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Trump to Unveil $54 Billion Alaska LNG Plan Amid Midterm Woes
President Donald Trump is set to unveil South Korea’s plan to invest some $200 billion in the US, including $54 billion for a long-stalled venture to export natural gas from Alaska that’s been champio...
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Yeah. And that she faced eviction too. Not sure how this helps his case. I have seen some defenders mostly on X, and almost all male, saying she needed to “pay her bills” if she didn’t want to be arrested. Also state law says you shouldn’t go to jail for a debt; but this was failure to appear…
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Roger Marshall’s not saying that the woman accusing him of having her arrested while 8 months pregnant in front of her daughter wasn’t arrested. He appears to be saying she owed a lot more than $50, that the arrest was failing to appear in court re: the debt, not the debt per se, and so on.
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David Nir @davidnir.com · 29/09/2026
And if you're curious as to why stations can be held liable for defamatory claims in third-party ads but *not* in candidate ads, we did an explainer earlier this year! It all goes back (believe it or not) to a Senate race in North Dakota ... in 1956 www.the-downballot.com/p/morning-di...
Normally, broadcasters can be sued for airing defamatory material—even advertising created by others—since stations are regarded as “publishers” of any such advertisements. A 1959 Supreme Court case, however, gave broadcasters immunity when it comes to candidate ads.

Three years earlier, a North Dakota TV and radio station, WDAY, had allowed the Democratic and Republican candidates running for the U.S. Senate to both air speeches shortly before Election Day. An independent candidate, Arthur Townley, then demanded—and received—the same opportunity.

In his address, Townley charged that his rivals “take orders from Communist controlled Democrat Farmers Union” and claimed the organization wanted to “establish a Communist Farmers Union Soviet right here in North Dakota.”

The Farmers Union then sued both Townley and WDAY for defamation, but WDAY argued that because it was obligated to give Townley equal time under the Communications Act, it could not be held liable. The Supreme Court ultimately agreed, setting a nationwide precedent that holds to this day.

(Townley, incidentally, never responded to the lawsuit and won less than 1% of the vote.)
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David Nir @davidnir.com · 28/09/2026
In theory, Hamilton himself could held be liable for defamation, but even if so—huge, huge "if"—any recompense for Marshall would be years down the road (following extensive, expensive litigation). Most importantly, it would *not* result in the ad getting taken off the air before Election Day.
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Sahil Kapur @sahilkapur.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., slams the White House’s pro-Trump ad that’s paid for with taxpayer money and says it is not a PSA: “I hate it. I tell you, it feels like Viktor Orbán talking to the Hungarian people. There’s no place for that sort of thing.”
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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 29/09/2026
Buried lede: among those speaking out against this is Gregory Baylor, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, a major conservative Christian legal group: “The government shouldn’t punish people who pursue socially valuable callings just because in its judgment they don’t earn enough money.”
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Unless they first voted to change the rules.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Not as wild as Meta’s Structure
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Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
How clear is it that Trump's taxpayer funded ads are illegal? I explain why it is 10/10 clear. Senate in passing the law: Ban is designed to stop public funds used for "glorification" of an individual official. GAO: funds can not be used for "self-aggrandizement" nor partisan political purposes.
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
There is some consumer fraud where people self-certify that their income is in the right threshold but has been falsified. That can be hard to detect on an individual basis, and the ACA’s income rules make it much more complicated than a universal system like the UK or Canada etc
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Another aspect of Trump's trade war is countries that are mad at us (like all of Canada) aren't buying as much of our stuff, and/or spending their tourism dollars elsewhere.
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