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Open Thread May 23, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:13 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 232022

Yesterday, I woke up before the alarm went off, and just stayed up, since I knew the weather could be problematic. It actually turned out not to be. there was no snow or ice or even frost on the windows – a couple of drops of rain was all. I took my time driving, the roads were almost all dry, and the short spots where they were not (bridges ot dips) were only wet, not icy. Virgil was a litttle short of sleep … and so was I. But we enjoyed each other’s comapny. And I got home as easily as I went down. (However, I wouldn’t be surprised if, when you see this, I am actually still asleep, even if you get to it later than usual.)

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Short Takes –

truthout – Judge Blocks Biden from Ending Title 42 in “Arbitrary, Racist” Ruling
Quote – Human rights advocates say Title 42 forces people legally seeking asylum in the United States into perilous situations in Mexican border cities, where Human Rights First has identified nearly 10,000 violent attacks on migrants. “Beyond the devastating humanitarian impact of Title 42, the court’s ruling also fails to recognize well-established domestic and international law,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. “Seeking asylum is a legal right, and yet this bedrock of the American legal system is quickly eroding at a time of unprecedented need.”
Click through for an explanation at least in part why the immigration authorities at the southern border are still doing such a – (cough) – such a rotten job. It isn’t all on Biden by a long shot (granted that some of it is).

Reuters – Analysis: Australian women unleash new political force on climate, integrity
Quote – Women who left successful careers in business, medicine and media to enter politics as independents were on track to win five seats from Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Liberal party in its affluent urban heartland in Saturday’s general election, as moderate voters abandoned the government…. Personifying the disruptive change were centrists, mostly women, dubbed “teal” candidates because of teal-coloured marketing material used as they targeted seats held by Morrison’s conservative party.
Click through for full analysis. Lona did such a good job of summarizeing the election results in her comment (scroll down) that I thought I’d use this article, since it’s more about something new than general politics.

Crooks and Liars – Cassidy: Our Maternal Death Rates Only Bad If You Include Black Women
Quote – “About a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality. So, if you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear,” Cassidy said in an interview with POLITICO. “Now, I say that not to minimize the issue but to focus the issue as to where it would be. For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality.”
Click through for story. Can you believe this? Not his thinking it, tha’s nrmal for Republicans, but presumably not realizing what kind of blowback he would get from it?

Food For Thought

Open Thread May 22, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:27 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 222022

Yesterday, I got up and checked the weather, and discovered we had had some snow, earlier that expected. I had to go out and brush it off before it froze – otherwise I’d never have been able to get it off this morning; But that had to wait until after the radio opera, which was Lucia di Lammermoor. Directors are always looking for new ways to stage this opera, likely because it is heard so often, and is so well written that, like La Boheme, there are some of us who know every note, and they want there to be some surprise. This production (though of course one can’t see it on the radio, but I saw some stills and watched a couple of shot excerpts) is supposed to be set in today’s American “rust belt,” but you wouldn’t go far wrog if you visualized “West Side Story.” But really, any environment with heavy-handed male domination works to conver how a young girl, emotionally (and mentally) fragile and with no allies, could reach the point murdering someone and then going into hallucinatory denial. Hence the “Mad Scene.” 19th century composers loved mad scenes because they were an excuse for highly decorated melidoes which could have nothing to do with anything actually happening (and of course sopranos love them too), and the one in “Lucia” is the best known for good reasons. But they were so prevalent, there is even a short one in the Ring Cycle (though it was only recently I realized that – it’s not presented as one.) Finally, I sent copies to Mitch of all your responses to the update in Thursday’s Open Thread and he wants to thank everyomne.

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George Takei’s Comic Sands – GOP Group That Helped Take Down Cawthorn Now Has Their Sights Set On Boebert—And Critics Can’t Wait
Quote – So the American Muckrakers PAC said they are going after Boebert next with damaging info. Apparently they had a hand in Cawthorn’s demise. This should be fun…. They are starting with her finances. In the fall, it was reported Boebert wrongly used campaign funds to pay for her rent and utility bill. This came about when $6,650 was exchanged via Venmo with the payment labeled “personal expenses.
Click through. This may be the best news I’ve had all week.

HuffPost – Tucker Carlson Asked Hunter Biden For Help With His Son’s Georgetown Application
Quote – “Tucker and I have the greatest respect and admiration for you. Always!” Susie Carlson wrote back. “I can’t thank you enough for writing that letter to Georgetown on Buckley’s behalf,” Tucker Carlson wrote to Biden a day later. “So nice of you. I know it’ll help. Hope you’re great and we can all get dinner soon.” The emails were part of records retrieved from a laptop Biden reportedly left at a Delaware repair shop in 2019, first reported by The New York Post.
Click through for story. To me the biggest story is that tucker ever had enough testosterobe to father a son. DNA testing anyone? And the second biggest surprise is that Tucker once had a decent human being as a friend.

Crooks and Liars – In Case Alex Jones Isn’t Detestable Enough, There’s This
Quote – [Marcel Fontaine] notified Jones that he was not the shooter. They ignored him. When he began to get threats, he notified them again that they were broadcasting a picture of the wrong person. The picture identifying him as the shooter remained on Jones’ website for a full day, visited by hundreds of thousands of people.
Click through for disgusting details. Jones should be held fully accountable for this. But who thinks Ken Pazton is going to prosecute?

Food For Thought

Open Thread May 21, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:26 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 212022

Yesterday, I woke up and thought, “Oh my God, it’s Saturday!” Fortunately – it wasn’t. But that certainly motivated me to get ready for today – so that I can use today to get ready for tomorrow and to visit Virgil in the snow. We are expecting less than an inch (maybe 17 mm), and that the day before I have to drive – but also very little sun and very low temperatires And I.m not sure what to expect on the road. Of course I will post when I get home but I’ll want to change first, so it may be 5:30 or even later my time.

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PolitiZoom – Never Before Has An S-4 Registration Statement Made For Hilarious Reading But That Was Before Trump
Quote – Shoring up the idea that Trump really wants to make a go of Truth Social is a report of a filing of a document which is required before Trump can take his platform public and sell stock in it. As the Los Angeles Times notes sagaciously, “Some followers of Trumpworld may find that the S-4 registration statement filed Monday in anticipation of the Trump-SPAC merger makes hilarious reading” and this is usually not the case. But then it is usually not the case that somebody with Trump’s track record of bankruptcies, lawsuits, liquidations, you name it, keeps coming back for more, trying to borrow and raise more and more money.
Click through for explanation and examples. The complete S-4 is here, but it’s very long and it all fine print.

Slate – What People Misunderstand About Red-Pilling
Quote – While racism is woven into the fabric of the United States, the daily repetition of white supremacist viewpoints by Fox News and political elites alike is an organized backlash to racial progress. It justifies police violence against people of color, virulent anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant policy, and local campaigns against “critical race theory” that shut down any discussion of race in school. Many of these ideas are workshopped and circulated in extremist spaces before they filter into mainstream political discourse. Understanding how they operate—and how and why extremist beliefs spread—is crucial.
Click through for details. This is why there is starting to be talk of “deprogramming” being needed, and why that idea is getting so much pushback.

The Daily Beast – New York City Officials Are Investigating a Potential Case of Monkeypox
Quote – Monkeypox, which is in the same family as smallpox, is a rare but potentially serious disease. Symptoms typically mirror those of the flu, and can include swollen lymph nodes and a rash throughout the body. If the patient tests positive, the result will be sent to the CDC for confirmation and city epidemiologists will contact individuals who may have come in contact with them during their infectious period. Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan said in a statement that the patient is following all isolation protocols during the investigation. Dr. Celine Gounder, an epidemiologist, told Gothamist that “with this current outbreak, it does seem to also be spreading more easily than what has been our prior experience”
Click through for more. Maybe it’s just me, but this issue of The Daily Beast’s “Cheat Sheet” seemed particularly beastly. Besides this story, there’s Victor Orban, Ginnt Thomas, and Eva the Dog. (The ads look like articles – if you click through and dive deeper, be aware – they are easily scrolled past but still mildly annoying.)

Food For Thought
As inappropriate as this is for the Southeast, it is very appropriate for Colorado just now.)

Open Thread May 20, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:15 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 202022

Yesterday, among other things, I heard from Mitch (our Mitch, I mean, of course – not BBM!) I had passed on a little info from comments about how we all are doing, and he was grateful to know and sends encouragement. He also gave me permission to pass on that he had his first cario rehab (yesterday); and it went well. It was a combination of assessment and workout, and he did more execcise than he had done since the day before the attack, and ended up not feeling not that bad. This coming Monday he will be doing it 3x weekly. He’s not up to commenting yet. He’s grateful for everyone’s concern. Of course I told him to take all the time he needed (where have I heard that before?)

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CPR News – After almost 80 years, roses from Colorado’s Amache internment camp may bloom again
Quote – It was during an archaeological dig that the rosebush was discovered. Bonnie Clark, an archaeologist with the University of Denver, and her team were on-site at Camp Amache when they found the bramble crawling across the remnants of a barracks doorway in 2012. It had survived a dark time in American history and the unforgiving extremes of Colorado’s southeastern plains…. Clark, who leads the DU Amache Research Project and Field School, believes people who were imprisoned at the camp planted the roses. “It’s hard to know which family planted them,” she said. “But most of the people who lived in the block where we found them at Amache were from Los Angeles.”
Click through to learn what all it took to accomplish this. Not only is this good news, but it comes at a time when the White House Rose Garden has just been partially restored and is colorful again.

Robert Reich – What you need to know about the anti-democracy movement
Quote – Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech financier who is among those leading the charge, writes “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Thiel is using his fortune to squelch democracy. He donated $15 million to the successful Republican Ohio senatorial primary campaign of J.D. Vance, who alleges that the 2020 election was stolen and that Biden’s immigration policy has meant “more Democrat voters pouring into this country.” And Thiel has donated at least $10 million to the Arizona Republican primary race of Blake Masters, who also claims Trump won the 2020 election and admires Lee Kuan Yew, the authoritarian founder of modern Singapore.
Click through for more – I suppose, since no one is perfet, there are times when the Reich on the left is not right, but I haven’t seen it yet. This may be the most important thing about our drift to autocracy which has yet been said – that it isn’t a drift, it’s a conscious push.

Crooks and Liars – Katie Porter: Dems Are Actually Doing Something About Inflation
Quote – “We have monopolies today in virtually everything. There is a bread monopoly, there’s a cereal monopoly, beef monopoly. So we need to create this competition. It’s going to help not only consumers, but small businesses wanting to enter these marketplaces. More competition is better for our economy, period. The only people who benefit from monopolies are the monopolists themselves.”
Click through for some details and how to message. This is difficult because it is complex yet the solution is pretty clear – and proven to work (Remember the Sherman Anti-Trust Act?) there’s also a video, if you can stand Joe and Mika for a few minites.

Food For Thought

Open Thread May 19, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:05 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 192022

Yesterday, I watched a Sixty Minutes segment (during that hour I avoid the radio -its only about 27 minutes, so I also watched something else – a documentary about the WWII British equivalent of Tucker Carlson – mildly interesting.) If you watch 60 mnutes you have probably seen the segment. If not, you may want to bookmark this for when you have a spare half hour. It’s the story of a black family who purchase a large home which turns out to have been, not just a plantation, but the plantation on which their ancestors were enslaved. Simply amazing. Here’s the link. I also managed to get trash ans recyclables out to the curb (It only took me about a half hour and a few extra CBD gummies to recover from that.)

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CPR News – ‘I’m not giving up’: Sen. Michael Bennet’s drive to make the expanded Child Tax Credit permanent
Quote – The pandemic-relief package, known as the American Rescue Plan, expanded the Child Tax Credit for one year, made it fully refundable, so the poorest families could benefit, and for the last half of 2021, sent it in the form of monthly checks to families, turning it into a reliable income supplement…. Bennet’s frustration that the expanded benefit was not made permanent, or even just extended, is palpable…. “I’m not giving up. And I don’t think we should give up. And I, frankly, I’m not giving up until we have an economy that when it grows, it grows for everybody, not just the people at the very top. And I think we can do that too,”
Click through for story. Colorado would have to be crazy not to re-elect Senator Bennet. (And it’s because part of Colorado IS crazy that I became a – small- monthly donor to the campaign.)

HuffPost – Living With The Far-Right Insurgency In Idaho
Quote – [White nationalist Vincent James Foxx] is one of many far-right activists who have flocked to Idaho in recent years, where a large and growing radical MAGA faction in the state’s Republican Party has openly allied itself with extremists to a shocking extent, even for the Trump era. This faction is accruing more and more power in Boise, the state capital: Imagine a statehouse full of Marjorie Taylor Greenes and Steve Kings. At the local level, they have seized seats on school boards and county commissions at a fast clip.
Click through for details. Idaho is pretty much every bit as LDS as Utah – just not as publicly. I don’t know what the position, or the participation of the LDS Church is in this – but I’ll bet there is some. The church just possibly could surprise us.

The Hill – House passes domestic terrorism bill in mostly party-line vote
Quote – The bill calls for establishing a Domestic Terrorism Unit in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the DHS, which would be tasked with observing and examining domestic terrorism activity, in addition to a Domestic Terrorism Office in the Counterterrorism Section of the National Security Division of the DOJ, which would look into and prosecute domestic terrorism incidents and communicate with the Civil Right Division about occurrences that may be considered hate crimes.
Click through for discussion and details. This could work, if only the government (federal and atate) would stop assuming that it’s only terrorism if a non-white person does it – when the reverse is closer to the truth.

Food For Thought

Open Thread May 18, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:53 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 182022

Yesterday,I finished a trifle early ans spent some time looking on the net for icons. I have a few on my desktop I think could be better, and looking is not all that time-consuming unless one falls into a rabbit hole. There are three things I am looking for in a desktop icon, which I call the three C’s – I want them colorful, cute, and clear. Colorful so they stand out, and clear so it’s obvious to me what they are. Cute just because I like cute. And I did find some that made me smile. They are very small files and I don’t keep than on my main hard drive anyway but on my portable hard drive, so they don’t clog things up. I know, not everyone’s idea of fun, but I enjoy it.

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Robert Reich – We need a hope machine. Anyone know how to build one?
Quote – But let me say something else as clearly as I can. I’ve been at this fight a very long time, and right now I find lots of reasons for hope. Ten, to be exact. (Here’s where the hammers, nails, and solar panels for Paula’s hope machine come in.)… 7. The myth of the decline of the West and the rise of the East — propounded by China and Russia — is proving itself bankrupt. Putin’s war on Ukraine is showing the world that totalitarian systems can’t even execute a war efficiently. Because dissent is stifled, accurate information doesn’t get back to headquarters. Because oligarchs have ravaged government funds, weapons systems don’t work. Because hierarchies are rigid and education in short supply, armies lack the training they need. Putin’s war is also revealing how fragile the Russian economy is, as is any economy whose strength turns on raw materials.
Clck through for the other nine. We do, sadly, need to avoid too much hope (or the wrong kind of hope) which can engender a sense of false security. But the reasons he cites tend to produce motivating hope, I think.

CPR News – Whistleblowers say they falsified patient records at Western Slope mental health center
Quote – The state overlooked what former workers describe as a long practice by the Grand Junction-based Mind Springs Health of intentionally writing patient evaluations that may not be based in reality. The three departments that regulate Colorado’s mental health safety net system failed to notice the problem reports during a recent multi-agency audit of the center, and over years of lax oversight. “You’ve got to wonder how closely these so-called regulatory agencies are really looking,” said Sunny Sullivan, one of 29 current and former Mind Springs workers who have come forward to tell the Colorado News Collaborative (COLab) about what they see as legal and ethical breaches.
Click through for details. Colorado currently has a Democratic governor and Democratic majorities in both state houses. But Colorado also has a TABOR problem, because it wasn’t always this way. When you have a Constitutional amendment requirig you to give back any excess funds to taxpayers, you can never build for the future by using state funds wisely. So you will always be under-funded – and worse, unmotivated. (And, in the public mind, failures like this are always the fault of the government, no matter how tightly the government’s hands are tied.)

The Conversation – Online data could be used against people seeking abortions if Roe v. Wade falls
Quote – In overturning Roe, the anticipated decision would not merely deprive women of reproductive control and physical agency as a matter of constitutional law, but it would also change their relationship with the online world. Anyone in a state where abortion becomes illegal who relies on the internet for information, products and services related to reproductive health would be subject to online policing. As a researcher who studies online privacy, I’ve known for some time how Google, social media and internet data generally can be used for surveillance by law enforcement to cast digital dragnets. Women would be at risk not just from what they reveal about their reproductive status on social media, but also by data from their health applications, which could incriminate them if it were subpoenaed.
Click through for explanation. I am happily post-menopausal – but every woman, pre, during, or post – needs to be aware this. We are accustomed to “having nothing to hide.” Well, now we have something to hide.

Food For Thought
I tried embedding this for the Video Thread, but the English subtitles disappeared. To me the most interesting thing isn’t exactly that he is telling straight truth (although that is very intresting indeed), but the way that Russian Fox News Barbie keeps trying to tell this hardened, clear-sighted professional soldier what war is really about.

Open Thread May 17, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:34 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 172022

Yesterday, my radio station played (an orchestral arrangement of ) the Welsh song usually translated as “Men of Harlech.” I first learned it when I was a little girl – but today it made me think of Ukraine. It’s known to date back to the Wars of the Roses, but may be even older, from 1408, when Prince Hal (the future Henry V) invaded it to annex it. Here’s a short quote from the oldest published English translation (1873):

Know that freedom’s cause is strongest,
Freedom’s courage lasts the longest,
Ending but with death!
Freedom countless hosts can scatter,
Freedom stoutest mail can shatter,
Freedom thickest walls can batter,
Fate is in her breath.

Sadly, the Welsh lost that battle and became part of the UK … but not part of England, even now. They have held on to their language and culture, and their status as a nation, to this day.

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Media Matters – Fox’s modest proposal for baby formula crisis: Starve migrant babies
Quote – Meanwhile, there is currently a major shortage of baby formula in the United States. There are many reasons for this shortage, including the consolidation of formula suppliers, supply chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, bacterial contamination that forced a recall of some formula stocks and the shuttering of a major manufacturing plant, U.S. trade policy, and the general disregard U.S. policy has for children. The shortage is a crisis for many parents, who are unable to find the food they need for their babies.
Click through for more. ICYMI, the term “Modest Proposal” is a reference to a satirical essay by Jonathan Swift regarding famine and babies (written IIRC during the Irish potato famine.)

Letters from an American – May 15, 2022
Quote – They also drew from America’s own version of a theory of replacement. That theory comes out of the 1870s and was explicitly connected to voting…. The violence of the 1876 election, along with fears of what their lives would look like in its wake, led Black Americans to leave the South in a movement known as the Exodus…. When Black Americans began to come to their state, Indiana Democrats immediately howled that the Republicans were importing Black migrants to shift the state back toward the Republicans in the 1880 election…. [T]he conspiracy theory took root. White Hoosier Democrats met Black migrants with showers of rocks and vowed to “clean out all the g–d d– –n***ers in the county before the [1880] election.”
Cick through for history and discussion. The only replacement of voters which is happening is in the course of nature, Yes, a few people do leave the US, and a few come here (though it takes a while to become a citizen, but the biggest influence is that older peole die and children reach voting age.That process happens to people of every color, and incidentally every gender – and has done so since the beginning of time. (Although Texas Paul has a slightly different take on it.) Wouldn’t you think Talibangelicals would think that trying to stop or change it was against God’s will? Alas, no consistency there.

The Daily Beast – Hero California Church Members Hog-Tied Gunman Who Killed 1, Hurt 5
Quote – After the initial gunfire, Hallock said, “a group of church-goers detained him and hog-tied his legs with an extension cord and confiscated at least two weapons.” The man had two handguns, police said…. Peggy Huang, a Yorba Linda city councilwoman who[se] parents are members of the congregation but were not present, told the Los Angeles Times that witnesses told her that after the shooting started, the pastor hit the gunman with a chair and other members accosted him.
Click through for details. Most of the parishoners appear to be in their seventies and up. There was no “good guy with a gun” here – the only weapon used was a chair. Older people are often underestimated.

Food For Thought

Open Thread May 16, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:59 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 162022

Yesterday, as you could probably tell from the email, I was trying to find out how to solve a problem with Disqus. I went through multiple FAQ pages and found out that, if Disqus won’t load at all for womeone, it is probably a browser issue, but resolving it depends on which browser (and may also depend on whether or not one is using Windows, and if so which version.) If anyone has had any experience with this. I’d appreciate any anecdotes at all. Also yesterday, it being Sunday, my radio station aired a “Classics for Kids” program on the theme of Military music. Snippets of the 1812 Overture, Háry János, and some marches were played, as well ass Beethoven’s “Wellington’s Victory.” I could not help thinking that if they really wanted to tell musically what war is, Schönberg’s “A Survivor from Warsaw” might come the closest. But that would probably draw complaints from parents of little snowflakes.

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Mother Jones – The Fight to Keep Their “Poor People’s Paradise” out of Private Equity’s Hands
Quote – [A] private equity–backed firm had bought the park, and residents soon found blue bags hanging on their doorknobs, containing packages outlining a fresh set of rules. Tenants were not to “wander on the streets of the community” after 9 p.m. Children were not to play in the roads. “Unsightly” or overgrown lawns were prohibited…. [L]andscapers hired by the park’s new owners had started cutting down residents’ rosebushes, lilac trees, and wildflower gardens. Before, Sans Souci was a “poor people’s paradise,” one resident said, where neighbors greeted each other as they passed by. But now everything that gave the community character, from people’s yard statues to the multicolored paint on their homes, had to go.
Click through for story. Remember Bain Capital (which by the way is still in business)? IMO, what private equitygroups to is simply lega;ized piracy.

Slate – Former Judge Resigns From the Supreme Court Bar
Quote – On Wednesday, Dannenberg tendered a letter of resignation from the Supreme Court Bar to Chief Justice John Roberts. He has been a member of that bar since 1972. In his letter, reprinted in full below, Dannenberg compares the current Supreme Court, with its boundless solicitude for the rights of the wealthy, the privileged, and the comfortable, to the court that ushered in the Lochner era in the early 20th century, a period of profound judicial activism that put a heavy thumb on the scale for big business, banking, and insurance interests, and ruled consistently against child labor, fair wages, and labor regulations.
Click through for letter (and also explanation of what the “Surpeme Court Bar” is.) Fifty years of membership down the tubes – because of Roberts.

The Daily Beast – PA Senate Candidate John Fetterman Hospitalized With Stroke Days Before Democratic Primary
Quote – Pennsylvania Senate Candidate John Fetterman revealed on Twitter that he checked into the hospital on Friday after he felt under the weather. According to a statement he posted Sunday afternoon, he suffered “a stroke that was caused by a clot from my heart being in an A-fib rhythm for too long.” Fetterman credited his wife, Gisele, for quickly spotting the signs and prodding him to seek medical treatment. Doctors were able to remove the clot and reverse the stroke, the candidate said
Click through for what is known. This is too bad – but at least it’s the primary, not the general. John is a Progressive, a force of nature who actually tells it like it is. His Democratic opponent, Conor Lamn, is more of a moderate. I’d rather see Fetterman in the Senate … but at least Lamb is no Joe Manchin.

Food For Thought

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