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Ex-Sen. Specter’s new career is comedyBy Joshua Altman - 12/28/11 12:11 PM ET Former Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) found an open mic and performed Tuesday at a Philadelphia comedy club to tell “some of the inside stories” of Washington. Specter spun tales of former President Clinton and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D), and just the mention of former presidential candidate Herman Cain elicited some of the biggest laughs of the act. “I should have started with Herman Cain, he gets a helluva laugh just by being identified,” Specter said with a shrug. Comedy is not just a hobby Specter...

So an ex-senator walks into a comedy club . . . That's not the setup to a joke - it's what happened Tuesday night when Arlen Specter took the stage at the Helium Comedy Club's open-mike night in Center City. "I've been in comedy now for 30 years," the former senator explained. Taking a try at stand-up was a natural step after spending so many years in the "sit-down comedy" of Congress - and, Specter noted, it was considerably less expensive. While some of his jokes are unprintable in a family newspaper - don't ask about the paraplegic who wanted...

Former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter has been outside the Beltway for more than a year, but the longtime politician is still in the loop. “The gridlock in Washington is really more like a war,” said Specter during a speech Wednesday at an annual fundraiser at the Abramson Center for Jewish Life in Horsham. Politics was just the tip of the iceberg. The 81-year-old and longest serving senator from Pennsylvania offered the crowd of 150 guests a state-of-the-nation type speech, addressing everything from the economy and Occupy Wall Street movement to the 2012 presidential election and Israel. Specter spent most of...

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department is investigating whether Guantanamo Bay detainees charged with roles in the Sept. 11 attacks were improperly given photos of CIA officers or contractors, according to a person familiar with the investigation. The investigation, headed by the Justice Department's counterespionage chief, John Dion, is trying to determine if military lawyers defending the detainees divulged classified information or compromised covert CIA officers, according to the person, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke only on condition of anonymity. It is a violation of federal law to identify CIA covert personnel, and it is a...

Departing Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter on Tuesday said conservative Republicans who backed Tea Party challengers against establishment candidates in the recent elections engaged in political cannibalism. In his final floor speech, Specter complained there's scant room for centrists like himself in a polarized Senate where civility is in short supply. "In some quarters, compromise has become a dirty word," said Pennsylvania's longest-serving senator, who lost his re-election bid after three decades in the Senate. Specter complained that some GOP senators had helped Tea Party challengers beat incumbent Republicans like Utah Sen. Bob Bennett and Rep. Mike Castle in his Delaware...

WASHINGTON - The family photographs came down Monday, packed in bubble wrap and boxes for the trip home, leaving nothing but some nails and sun-faded outlines on the walls of Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's inner office. After 30 years on Capitol Hill, the state's longest-serving senator is clearing out and heading back to Philadelphia. Specter, 80, will deliver his final floor speech Tuesday morning, decrying a gridlocked Senate that has lost its political center and the sense of collegiality that once kept senators from campaigning against one another. "Eating or defeating your own is a form of sophisticated cannibalism," Specter,...

One of the most ignominious political careers of the modern era will at last sputter to a pitiful end when the 111th Congress finally relinquishes its strangle-hold on the American Republic. Arlen Specter, outgoing senator from Pennsylvania, personified the sort of elite, politically opportunistic, government careerism that the American people have grown to so justifiably loathe. He will not be missed. Educated at Yale Law School, Specter first sought public office when, though a registered Democrat, he ran for district attorney of Philadelphia on a Republican ticket in 1965 because, as TIME once noted, “ he failed to secure the...

Sen. Arlen Specter urged “mainstream Americans” to turn out in droves to prevent a total rejection of moderate challengers and incumbents. “Mainstream Americans must march to the polls this November to express themselves forcefully to stop extremists financed by undisclosed contributors from stifling our democracy,” the Pennsylvania Democrat said in a floor statement Tuesday morning. Specter, who left the GOP for the Democratic Party last year after determining he could not win the Republican primary in his state, noted this year’s primary process has been particularly devastating to moderates. Specter, a moderate, is one of three incumbent Senators to lose...

As the National Institutes of Health fights in court for permission to resume long-term funding for research involving human embryonic stem cells, some members of Congress are coming to the agency’s defense with a proposal to make President Obama’s stem-cell funding policy the law of the land. Monday in Washington, D.C., Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn.) spoke in favor of the Stem Cell Research Advancement Act. This bill would make clear Congress' intent to allow federal funds to be used on the promising research, which is controversial because the cells themselves are derived from days-old human embryos, which are destroyed in...

Sean's complete showdown with Democratic senator over party switch.

It appears lame-duck Sen. Arlen Specter, sometime-Democrat from Pennsylvania, hasn't had enough of the Obama administration job-for-politics merry-go-round. Not one to go gentle into that good night, Mr. Specter is angling to be a special envoy to Syria. At the same time, he is abandoning his own standards in order to support the Supreme Court nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, all while giving the cold shoulder to Sept. 11 victim families even though those victims are trying to help his own legislation. Mr. Specter's sellout adds new skulduggery to the increasingly troubled ethics of the Kagan nomination. It is...

The numbers remain little changed this month in Pennsylvania’s race for the U.S. Senate, with Republican Pat Toomey continuing to maintain a slight lead over Democrat Joe Sestak. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the state shows Toomey with 45% support, while Sestak earns 38% of the vote. Six percent (6%) prefer some other candidate in the race, and 12% are undecided. Last month, Toomey held a near-identical 45% to 39% lead. In fact, except for a brief surge after his mid-May victory over incumbent Arlen Specter in the state’s Democratic Senate Primary, support for Sestak...

Sources tell ABC News that Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pennsylvania, has informed the White House that he would like to consider remaining in public service after his Senate term ends at the end of this session, and White House officials are keeping an open mind about possible job openings for him.

Sen. Arlen Specter was a wild card when it came to Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court, but today said he'll support her even though the confirmation hearings this month were a "charade." It's a change of heart for Specter, who voted against her February 2009 nomination to the solicitor general post when he was still a Republican. He was the most likely Democrat to oppose her, but Specter's support clears the way for a smooth confirmation vote next week in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Specter (D-PA) announced today that Kagan did "just enough" to win him over. At...

WASHINGTON — While Solicitor General Elena Kagan remains almost a dead-certain lock to be confirmed, and likely sometime before the August recess, as of right now she's down in the vote count 2-9. Al Franken was the first senator to commit to voting yes, which he did during a news conference call while in Vietnam. Sen. Mark Udall, a freshman Democrat from Colorado, is the only other committed yes vote so far. Nine Republicans, all of whom opposed Sonia Sotomayor, are now on record as saying they'll oppose Kagan, according to National Journal's The Hotline, which is tracking official statements...

The United States of America used to be a fearsome power but one with a soft touch. Peoples of the world looked to this great nation as that "shining city on a hill" and came here by the millions to become the next new American citizen. Producing its greatness were great men and in memory of those great men landmarks, and worthy institutions were named after them by a proud and thankful people. We had Washington City named for the father of our country. We had schools and libraries named after the first man of the people, Andrew Jackson. We...

Organizing for America tells us everything we need to know about Joe SestakWe received the following from Elizabeth Lucas, Pennsylvania State Director, Organizing for America The choice is clear: we must elect Congressman Joe Sestak to be our next U.S. Senator. Learn how you can help Joe Sestak -- a strong ally of President Obama -- and his campaign for U.S. Senate. Right, Lizzy, isn't this the same Joe Sestak whom your boss and/or his associates attempted to buy off with the offer of a prestigious position in his administration, possibly in violation of laws that forbid the use of...

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) on Monday accused the Supreme Court of a constitutional power grab. In a nearly hour-long floor speech, Specter said the court had ignored congressional will and ceded federal power to the presidency. The outgoing senator, defeated in a Democratic primary last month, criticized Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito by name, saying both had paid “lip service” to Congress during their confirmation hearings. Specter also urged his committee colleagues to take an especially sharp look at Solicitor General Elena Kagan, whose confirmation hearings for the Court begin next Monday. Otherwise, he said Congress risks...

Congressman Joe Sestak’s post-primary bounce appears to over, and he now trails Republican rival Pat Toomey by seven points in the U.S. Senate contest in Pennsylvania. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Pennsylvania shows Toomey with 45% support, while Sestak earns 38%. Five percent (5%) prefer another candidate in the race, and 12% are undecided. Two weeks ago, just after his widely covered primary victory over longtime Senator Arlen Specter, Sestak posted a modest four-point lead lead over Toomey. Prior to the primary, however, Toomey tended to enjoy modest leads over Sestak. The current polling shows...

Joe to Joe By The Prowler on 6.1.10 @ 6:09AM MISSING IN ACTION Some Democrats on Capitol Hill were caught off guard by the White House announcement on Friday that placed former President Bill Clinton and Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel at the center of the Rep. Joe Sestak job bribery scandal. "We expected at the end of the day that somehow Joe Biden would be involved," says one Democrat leadership source. "He was much more involved in the Specter recruitment and had more invested in getting Specter what he wanted." Indeed, Specter and several senior advisers, according to...