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PA Senate Race - John Fetterman is so awesome!
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Has Achieved Nirvana
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I echo P*D's sentiment.

Very well said, Lisa.


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We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb

Bazootiehead-in-training



 
Posts: 37793 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Minor Deity
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quote:
Originally posted by Lisa:
A regular guy. Exactly.

I live in the white-collar burbs of Philadelphia - a college-educated, upper-middle-class white stay-at-home mom. I have a well-paid husband and a nice house and a stockbroker and a 401K and all the trappings of the American dream. But I grew up in a hardscrabble dying coal mining town in NE Pennsylvania. My grandfather was a coal miner. Neither of my parents went to college (well my mom went to community college while I was in middle school and got a 2 year degree in nursing eventually). We moved in with my grandparents a few times while growing up because we couldn't afford to live on our own. When we had our own house, we kept the heat at 55-60 degrees because we couldn't afford to keep it any warmer - and let me tell you I still remember EXACTLY how much it sucked rolling out of my cozy bed into a 55 degree house every morning. And in the town I grew up in, that was just reality for a lot of people. I was lucky that my parents scrimped and saved and stressed how important it was that I go to college. I was lucky that I got out. A lot of my friends didn't.

In the history of Pennsylvania politicians, I don't feel like there have been a whole lot of them that can really understand that experience. Politics tends to be a rich man's (and yes, I say "man" very intentionally) game. Democrats talk about raising the minimum wage or supporting unions but how many politicians have ever watched their mom sit at the kitchen table and try to figure out whether the electric bill or the gas bill should get paid this month out of her minimum wage salary? What's the least amount of money she could possibly put towards each bill to keep the utilities on and still be able to afford to pick up the prescription my sister needs? I watched my mom do that math for years.

The reality is that pretty much everyone in Washington is completely out of touch with that life. They say they care. They say they understand. But they don't, not really. They haven't seen it. They haven't lived it. And sure, you can say that Fetterman has a masters degree from Harvard and he had his parents paying his bills while he was mayor of Braddock and he's more privileged than he seems. But he made the choice to immerse himself in it. He worked with Americorps. He involved himself with Big Brothers Big Sisters and mentored kids who lived that lifestyle. He moved to Braddock and ran for mayor because he saw what people were going through and he genuinely wanted to help. He CHOSE to help. He is the real deal - a person who sees the problems in the world and does what he can to fix them. Is he a perfect person? Of course not. Everyone makes mistakes.

But compare him to someone like Oz, with his custom tailored suits and his 8 (or is it 9 now?) mansions. Do you know that Fetterman not only refused to live in the Lt. Governor's mansion, he also opened the pool for public access and camps for underprivileged children? Think Oz would ever do anything like that? Think the fact that underprivileged children don't have anywhere to learn to swim would even occur to Oz? Do you think Oz spends any time thinking about underprivileged children at all???

So yeah, when I'm thinking about who I want representing me in the Senate -- who I want making decisions about how much insulin should cost and what minimum wage should be and whether student loans should be forgiven......or on the other hand, whether big banks should get another tax break or whether big pharma lobbyists should get their way AGAIN or whether we should prosecute some hedge fund guy for fraud or just wink and look the other way again like we always do.....I want the guy who understands me. Not just the privileged life I live now, but the life I came from, the life that made me who I am, and the life that so many other people in Pennsylvania still struggle through every day. And out of all the votes I have cast over my lifetime, I honestly think that this might be the first time I am voting for someone that I think really, truly, gets all of that.


Thank you. A thoughtful, well thought out reply.


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"A mob is a place where people go to get away from their conscience" Atticus Finch

 
Posts: 13525 | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
"I've got morons on my team."

Mitt Romney
Minor Deity
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Ya know, that post should be forwarded to Fetterman's team. I'm quite sure they could use it productively. It's spoken from the heart.
 
Posts: 12511 | Location: Williamsburg, VA | Registered: 19 July 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Has Achieved Nirvana
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I had the same thought.


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We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb

Bazootiehead-in-training



 
Posts: 37793 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Minor Deity
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quote:
Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
I didn't know much about him. Thanks for posting that.
+1 thanks, @Lisa.


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www.PianoRecital.org -- my piano recordings -- China Tune album

 
Posts: 12682 | Registered: 01 December 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Minor Deity
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Beautifully written, Lisa (and super informative). Thanks!

You probably got the same email from Fetterman today that I got.

I was struck by this note from Fetterman, concerning how Trump spoke of him at an OZ rally sponsored by Trump.

More lunacy! Nuts

quote:
I mean, Trump literally called me a "raging lunatic" and said I would "bring death and destruction" to PA.


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The most dangerous word in the language is "obvious"

 
Posts: 14392 | Location: PA | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Does This Avatar Make My Butt Look Big?

Minor Deity
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Lisa rocks.
 
Posts: 19757 | Location: A cluttered house in Metro D.C. | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Has Achieved Nirvana
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Add me to the chorus of praise, Lisa.
 
Posts: 24654 | Registered: 31 March 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Gadfly
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Aww shucks guys, thanks.

I don't mean to come across all woe-is-me, which is why I'm reluctant to send it anywhere (for one thing, I think my mother would be mortified that I laid out our circumstances so publicly like that). My sister and I had 2 parents who loved us and we always had a roof over our heads and, even when the house was cold, my mom somehow found money to pay the piano teacher (granted, I'm pretty sure he actually made LESS than minimum wage, LOL) so we definitely weren't totally deprived. And after my mom got her nursing degree things definitely got way better financially for us. I know that so many people have it so much worse - there are families sleeping in cars and kids holding their younger siblings' lives together in spite of drug addled parents and kids in the foster system with no parents at all -- so I kind of almost feel bad writing what I wrote. But it's true - Fetterman, whatever his faults, is a genuinely good-hearted person who could have lived a pampered existence and instead chose to move to the grittier side of life and help people who needed help. And I truly believe he's running for Senate not because he wants any kind of fame or power but because he sees it as a way to help more people in a bigger way. I don't feel like there are too many people like that in Washington.

Honestly (and I say this as person who was raised strict-Catholic and is now adamantly non-religious), Fetterman is living the teachings of Christ in a way that most of these Bible-banging so-called Christians could never imagine. They reject the poor, reject welfare, refuse to fund food stamps or universal healthcare, and happily send immigrants back to their home countries to die from poverty and gang violence. But yet they'll take one look at Fetterman's stance on abortion and say he's the one going to hell. If there is a God, I can't imagine what he thinks of the mess we've made of humanity.
 
Posts: 4390 | Location: Suburban Philly, PA | Registered: 30 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Gadfly
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Posts: 4390 | Location: Suburban Philly, PA | Registered: 30 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Has Achieved Nirvana
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hysteric
 
Posts: 24654 | Registered: 31 March 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Has Achieved Nirvana
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I didn’t realize what a charlatan Dr OZ was. I didn’t have exposure to television during his active years so I never saw him.

I thought he was just a Columbia surgeon who got a lot of airtime on morning TV shows. I didn’t realize he sold “miracle pills” and such.


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If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.

 
Posts: 33797 | Location: On the Hudson | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Minor Deity
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There are contrary opinions on Fetterman. I suspect neither narrative is entirely true.

https://nypost.com/2022/10/11/...man-claims-he-saved/


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"A mob is a place where people go to get away from their conscience" Atticus Finch

 
Posts: 13525 | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Gadfly
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Wow - spent some time on Fetterman's youtube channel. There's some good stuff!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm44ADFsAT0

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/657DRmoMSBc
 
Posts: 4390 | Location: Suburban Philly, PA | Registered: 30 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Has Achieved Nirvana
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quote:
Originally posted by Mikhailoh:
There are contrary opinions on Fetterman. I suspect neither narrative is entirely true.

https://nypost.com/2022/10/11/...man-claims-he-saved/


I think you're right about neither narrative being exactly true.

From the NYPost article:

quote:
Fetterman has boasted that “as mayor of Braddock and its chief law enforcement officer, I worked with the chief of police, our police officers, and the community to reduce violent crime.” But data between 2005 and 2018 show that violent crime actually rose under his leadership.


From the source the NYPost quoted:

quote:
Crime rate in Braddock, PA The 2019 crime rate in Braddock, PA is 160 (City-Data.com crime index), which is 1.7 times smaller than the U.S. average. It was higher than in 59.7% U.S. cities. The 2019 Braddock crime rate fell by 61% compared to 2018. In the last 5 years Braddock has seen decline of violent crime and increasing property crime.


Readers and voters beware.


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We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb

Bazootiehead-in-training



 
Posts: 37793 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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