America Faces No Greater Threat Than Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. Their Assault to Our Borders Is As Great As Their Assault to Free Speech and Free Elections
Friday, October 21, 2022
DEMOCRATS AND THE BLACK CRIME TIDAL WAVE - Convicted Killer, Freed from Prison by Fetterman-Backed District Attorney, Now Wanted for Murder
New York Mayor Eric Adams would have been the Democrats’ runaway choice for president if only he’d kept his campaign promise and cut crime in the Big Apple. No mayoral candidate talked about “safety, safety, safety” more than he. As Adams told MSNBC during the campaign:
Public safety and justice is the prerequisite to prosperity. And I think that we have become too symbolic, instead of realistic, on how you keep cities safe. And it’s time for the Democratic Party to understand this. America wants to be safe. And we can do it with justice at the same time.
If a black mayor had saved New York City, no one could have beaten him. Not only that, but Adams has a black deputy mayor for public safety (Phil Banks), a black police commissioner (Keechant L. Sewell) and a black district attorney (Alvin Bragg).
As conservatives never tire of pointing out, murder victims are overwhelmingly black (as are murder perpetrators, but let’s not mention that). In a world that has only recently discovered that “Black Lives Matter,” wouldn’t an all-black law enforcement team come down like a sledgehammer on crime?
Adams wasn’t setting some pie-in-the-sky, impossible goal for himself. You don’t have to go back to the 1950s to conceive of a safe New York. Just think back to about five years ago. New Yorkers lived in a virtually crime-free city for 20 years under mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg.
In fact, those mayors made the city so safe, even communist Mayor Bill de Blasio couldn’t wreck it overnight. It took a virus from China (which apparently required that criminals be released, but citizens be locked up) and a fentanyl addict dying in Minneapolis for him to spring the criminals it had taken Giuliani and Bloomberg 20 years to catch.
The point is: You can’t fool New Yorkers anymore. They know it’s possible to keep violent psychos off the street.
Just not by a Democrat.
The problem is, no Democrat can support any policy that would reduce crime because, unfortunately, that would simply not be possible without putting more “black bodies” in prison.
SIRENS BLARE! TA-NEHISI COATES DESCENDS FROM THE HEAVENS.
The Democratic Party treats black criminals as sacred beings, much like the temple in India where they worship rats.
Yes, perhaps vastly more black lives would “matter” in the sense of continuing to exist. But more “black bodies” would be subjected to stop-and-frisk by the police. Obviously, that’s a no-go. Unpack your invisible backpack, white supremacist!
Liberals love to boast about New York’s murder rate going up at a less astronomical clip than other crimes. Well, yeah—criminals are notoriously poor marksmen. They are approximately as likely to hit small children and elderly bystanders as their intended target. Congratulations, New York!
On the other hand, shootings in the city have gone from about 900 a year in 2018 to nearly 2,000 a year, according to the New York Times.
It turns out Adams is the Democrats’ Donald Trump: All talk, no action.
There were hints that Adams wasn’t going to get the job done when, earlier this year, Politico reported he was meeting with crime experts Al Sharpton and Joe Biden. He proudly noted that he’d recently thanked a group of police officers... for letting a perp get away. (At least no black bodies were hurt!) He even suggested that a video of the escaping suspect be screened for officers to show them how it’s done.
Commenting on the episode, Adams said, “You have to inspect what you expect or it’s suspect.” Doggerel from elected officials often precedes a collapse in crime rates.
Apart from encouraging cops not to do their jobs, Adams’ main anti-crime initiative has been to slap “Gun Free Zone” signs around Times Square.
So how’s it going? In addition to the shootings, since Adams has been mayor, forcible rape is up 63%, grand larceny 38%, robberies 24%, car theft 25% and major felonies in the transit system 51%.
Every single day, there’s a new mind-blowing crime in New York.
Here are a few vignettes from Life in the Big City:
On Tuesday this week, a 19-year-old public school teacher’s assistant in Brooklyn was shot in the head outside his school in the middle of the day.
Last Thursday, three New Yorkers were stabbed on the subway within seven hours, one fatally.
The previous Saturday night, nine (extremely body-positive) women dressed from head to toe in neon green bodysuits boarded the subway at Times Square and proceeded to pummel and rob a couple of 19-year-old girls.
Days earlier, a random psycho stabbed an EMS worker to death in a frenzied attack in broad daylight outside a Queens deli.
The bad news for New York is that unless Lee Zeldin is elected governor this November, there is no hope. Things will continue to spiral downward into a dystopian horror. The good news for the country is that at this stage, it looks like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t even going to have to campaign to be our next president.
COPYRIGHT 2022 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
Ann Coulter is the author of THIRTEEN New York Times bestsellers—collect themhere.
By Radley Balko Columnist September 20, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
Politics has a way of flattening things. It shreds nuance and context and crudely reframes morally knotty conundrums into simplistic questions of good or evil, right or wrong, us or them.
As the 2022 midterms enter the homestretch, it seems clear that Republicans plan to scare voters with a lot of crass demagoguery about crime. But behind every sensationalist commercial or hyperbolic news release, there are real people whose stories are far more complicated. There’s no better example than Pennsylvania brothers Lee and Dennis Horton. ...
As the brothers have told it in court documents, their lives were abruptly upended during a family cookout in May 1993 when Lee asked his brother to go with him to get some beer. On the way back, Lee spotted an old friend named Robert Leaf. The friends chatted for a bit, after which they decided Leaf would ride with the brothers back to Lee’s house. The Hortons say they weren’t aware of it at the time, but Leaf was fleeing police. He and at least one other man had just robbed a bar and, in the course of the robbery, shot up the place, killing one and wounding several others.
The three were stopped by the police, arrested and charged for the robbery and murder. Police offered the Horton brothers a deal: testify against Leaf, and they’d get the lesser charge of third-degree murder, punishable by up to 10 years in prison if convicted. They refused — because, they say, they weren’t guilty and hadn’t seen Leaf commit the crime. Leaf got a similar offer. He would end up testifying against the brothers. He was paroled in 2008.
The Hortons were convicted based on Leaf’s negotiated accusation and eyewitnesses who claimed the brothers were part of the robbery team. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable, but ideally, a witness identifies a perpetrator from a photo or in-person lineup of similar-looking people. In this case, all three eyewitnesses were asked to look inside a police wagon where Leaf and the Hortons had been detained. Not surprisingly, they identified the three men, though their accounts would be inconsistent and contradictory.
The police initially believed Leaf was the gunman, but later changed their narrative to make Dennis Horton — a man with no prior convictions and no history of violence — the shooter. The Hortons were convicted and given life sentences. They were incarcerated for almost 28 years, nearly 13 years longer than Leaf.
Over time, the Hortons and their attorneys would discover police notes identifying Leaf as the shooter, a prisoner who claimed Leaf had confessed to him and exonerated the Hortons, and incriminating statements Leaf made to police. None of that was enough to move the courts.
Amid all this, the Hortons were model prisoners. …
In 2020, led by Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons unanimously recommended that the Hortons be granted clemency. Gov. Tom Wolf agreed, and in February 2021 the two men were released on parole. Since then, they’ve continued to mentor and counsel current and former prisoners and have participated in a violence interruption program.
Fetterman, who was moved to tears by the brothers’ testimony before the pardon board, later announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. He hired the brothers to work on his campaign.
I don’t know whether the Hortons are innocent. But if they are, it wouldn’t be the first time conservatives have made political hay of “convicted killers” who turned out to be innocent. There’s certainly plenty of reason to question their guilt.
In any case, innocence aside, the Hortons’ story should inspire difficult conversations about justice, absolution and rehabilitation. Instead, we’re getting the Republican narrative, which amounts to screaming “Murderers!” while wildly gesticulating in the general direction of crime.
That’s what politics does. It flattens everything in its way.
Just because the Hortons are clearly guilty, at minimum, of Felony Murder is no excuse for calling them “murderers.” Where’s the nuance? Show some deference: the Hortons are Upper-Case Americans!
From Ann Coulter’s Unsafe Substack a week earlier:
Dr. Oz should never shut up about the Horton brothers.
Ann Coulter Sep 14
Dr. Mehmet Oz, Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, recently attacked his opponent, the ridiculous Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, for a pro-criminal record that would embarrass George Soros. Specifically, he criticized Fetterman for employing as aides on his campaign Dennis and Lee Horton, who spent 27 years in prison for a horrific armed robbery murder.
Drunk on his own self-righteousness, Fetterman sanctimoniously responded: ”Does Dr. Oz believe that the wrongfully convicted should die in prison?” He added that the brothers “spent 27 years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit.”
Members of the media, who fervently believe our prisons are just bursting at the seams with completely innocent men, didn’t need to hear more. Suddenly, the entire media-big tech-entertainment conglomerate was screaming at Oz: HOW DARE YOU, YOU MORALLY BANKRUPT DOUCHEBAG! THESE TWO MEN WERE PROVED INNOCENT!
According to brothers Dennis and Lee Horton [and who would know better?], on Memorial Day 1993, they were out for a joyride when they picked up their friend, a guy named Robert Leaf.
What they did not know was that Leaf had just murdered Samuel Alemo and was currently being pursued by the police [sketch that scene for me, Chris]. They were pulled over and all three men were arrested.
The police involved with the case were accused of using a whole host of problematic tactics during the investigation [yes, they were “accused”—accusations laughed out of court by Democratic judges]; eyewitnesses changed their story [they did not]after prosecutors tried to pin the crime on all three of them—the Hortons as well.
And the district attorney’s case file, which was not made available till 2018 [I think we know why, Larry Krasner!], included a note stating Leaf is the shooter and a police note indicating Leaf acknowledged his role—all seeming to clear the Hortons. [total B.S.]
The Horton brothers, who are black, refused a plea agreement because they said they didn’t want to plead guilty to a crime they did not commit.
Below, I have edited Hayes’ description to include only those parts that are relevant and actually true:
“on Memorial Day 1993...
“a guy named Robert Leaf
“They were ... pulled over and all three men were arrested.
“The Horton brothers ... are black.”
Luckily for people interested in knowing the truth—a group that decidedly does not include Chris Hayes—the Horton brothers spent their years in prison clogging up the courts with frivolous appeals, so it’s possible to find out how these innocent lambs were somehow convicted of A CRIME THEY DIDN’T COMMIT!
In dismissing their most recent appeal, here’s how the Pennsylvania Superior Court summarized the “evidence adduced at trial”—that is, evidence presented in open court, supported by physical evidence and eyewitness testimony, subjected to cross-examination, and believed by 12 members of a jury:
On May 31, 1993, [Dennis Horton], his brother Lee Horton (’Lee’), and a co-conspirator Robert Leaf (’Leaf’) robbed Filito’s Bar located at 5th Street and Hunting Park Avenue.
During the course of the robbery, [Dennis Horton], who was carrying a rifle, shot Samuel Alemo multiple times. Alemo later died from his gunshot wounds. [Dennis Horton] also shot Luz Archella and her daughter Luz Martinez, injuring both. Leaf brandished what appeared to be a black pistol while Lee took money from bar patrons. After leaving the bar, the three men fled in a blue automobile.
A passerby was able to supply police with a description of the vehicle and a partial license plate number. A radio call was sent out, which included a description of the three assailants, their vehicle, and the last four digits of the license plate. A police officer observed the vehicle a short time later only a mile from the crime scene, and placed [Dennis Horton] and his companions under arrest.
Police recovered a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle from the backseat of the car, as well as a black pellet gun under the front passenger seat. Ballistics testing identified the rifle as the same weapon used during the robbery at Filito’s. [Horton], Lee, and Leaf ... were taken to the hospital where Martinez and her daughter, as well as another bar patron, Miguel DeJesus, identified them as the robbers.
(The judges, incidentally, were all Democrats, including the only black woman on the 38-member appellate court, who subscribes to the theory that prison is “The New Jim Crow.”)
As you can see right away, one problem with the media’s version of events is: What the hell happened to the other two guys?
This was a daytime robbery of a bar, where two of the perpetrators walked around, taking the patrons’ wallets at gunpoint—not a nighttime mugging witnessed from 20 yards away. The victims had plenty of time to observe the perps. However much criminal defense lawyers attack eyewitness testimony, the patrons certainly knew it was three guys, not one; that they were black, not white; and they were male, not female.
But more important, right after the murdering thieves sped off, a passerby called the police with a description of the car, including four of six numbers from the license plate. Within minutes, that very car was stopped by the police a mile from the bar. And you’ll never guess what they found in that car … three black guys and a recently fired rifle!
Explain, again, how the Horton brothers happened to be in that car?
Right after their arrest, all three men were positively identified at the hospital by the people they’d shot at earlier that day. But even without that identification, again: They were caught in the getaway car, mere minutes after the crime.
So if I understand it correctly, the media’s theory of the crime is as follows:
Immediately after the robbery—and I mean immediately!—Leaf told his REAL accomplices: I’ve got a fantastic idea! You guys get out of the car. I know these two brothers—the Hortons—who look exactly like you and I’m pretty sure are wearing the exact same clothes. Also, their car is identical to yours and—you’ll never believe this—their license plate number is only off by two digits. I’ll just call them to come pick me up and wait here by the side of the road with the long-barreled—and easy to conceal!—rifle we just fired—OH CRAP! IT’S THE POLICE!
Look, it would be one thing if Fetterman defended his years-long PR campaign on behalf of the murdering Horton brothers by saying, They’ve served long enough! Everybody deserves a second chance. I would disagree, especially because the brothers continue to deny their guilt—but in that case, at least Fetterman would only be a gullible fool, and not a despicable, bald-faced liar.
Convicted Killer, Freed from Prison by Fetterman-Backed District Attorney, Now Wanted for Murder
A convicted killer is now wanted for another murder after he was freed from prison by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s (D) Conviction Integrity Unit, which has the backing of Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.
In 2021, Krasner’s Conviction Integrity Unit got a judge to throw out the murder conviction against 32-year-old Jahmir Harris who served eight years in prison. Harris was convicted for the 2012 murder of 45-year-old Louis Porter whom he was accused of shooting in the head in front of his 5-year-old son in a Philadelphia parking lot just two days before Christmas.
According to prosecutors, Harris murdered Porter over a $3,900 drug debt.
Last year, though, Krasner’s Conviction Integrity Unit — which Fetterman has called a “model” for the rest of Pennsylvania — helped get Harris’s conviction thrown out and he was subsequently freed from prison.
Now, Harris is wanted by Philadelphia police after allegedly being linked to the shooting and killing of 50-year-old Charles Gossett last month.
Fetterman, running against Republican Mehmet Oz for the state’s open United States Senate seat, has long praised Krasner’s Conviction Integrity Unit and has said the program should be implemented statewide to help free convicts from prison.
In a statement, Oz spokeswoman Brittany Yanick said Fetterman is partially responsible for Harris’s prison release last year and thus the murder of Gossett.
“John Fetterman praised Larry Krasner and his Conviction Integrity Unit, saying this type of organization is needed in every county in Pennsylvania,” Yanick said. “Now, this group and John Fetterman are responsible for releasing a convicted murderer who is wanted in yet another tragic murder.”
“When will this senseless violence stop? The answer is never if John Fetterman gets his way,” Yanick continued. “He wants to release one-third of Pennsylvania’s inmate population, continue pardoning convicted murderers, and let violent criminals run our streets. That’s too extreme for the U.S. Senate and downright deadly for Pennsylvania.”
Fetterman’s campaign has not yet responded to a request for comment from Breitbart News.
This month, Fetterman suggested that the movie The Shawshank Redemption justifies releasing convicted murderers from prison.
As chair of the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons, Fetterman helped free a number of convicted murderers from prison and has suggested freeing a third — roughly 13,000 — of all inmates in the state’s prison system.
In 2019, Fetterman successfully helped free a convicted second-degree murderer who was known as “a son of the devil” and who had allegedly threatened witnesses in the case with murder if they testified against him.
That same year, Fetterman voted to free from prison a convicted murderer who killed a man with garden shears and sought to have a hitman murder his accomplice. In June 2021, Fetterman was the sole vote to free a convicted murderer who killed an 18-year-old boy for heroin money.
Fetterman, as Breitbart News reported, has overseen the release of 13 convicted murderers while heading the Board of Pardons. Also, one of Fetterman’s appointees to the board sought to end mandatory sentences of life without parole for first- and second-degree murderers.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
His Name Is Chris Eberhart: White Family Man "Randomly" Murdered And Carjacked By Black Male In Atlanta
Another story confirming America isn’t dominated by white privilege, structural inequality, implicit bias, and systemic racism. Were our nation dominated by these concepts, we’d know how Chris Eberhart was murdered and who “randomly” murdered him in a carjacking “gone wrong“ by a black male.
And it all happened in Atlanta, the City too Busy to Hate.
The family of Chris Eberhart is still in shock at the random and senseless crime that took the life of their loved one last week. Atlanta Police said Eberhart was shot to death during a carjacking around 7 a.m last Thursday. The suspect, Travis Landrey, was arrested in Mobile County, Alabama. He was caught inside Eberhart’s stolen truck.
Eberhart’s family sat down with 11Alive’s Cody Alcorn in Monroe on Monday evening and described the morning they learned the news. “It was just devastating. Yeah, devastating, shock; couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a sick joke,” Eberhart’s family explained. “Yeah, it’s just surreal for the way it happened.” Chris Eberhart’s brother Ron Eberhart said his brother was parked at a job site off Peachtree Battle Avenue that morning. “It was just a normal day,” Ron said, adding his brother was there doing a remodel project. While for some 7 a.m. would be early to a job site, Eberhart’s friends and family said that’s how he operated. Bart Biddy told 11Alive he worked with Eberhart quite a bit and considered him a brother.
“That man woke the rooster up to get everybody else up. He was on the job site before everyone,” Biddy said. On that Thursday morning, Eberhart was parked in the driveway, waiting for the rest of his crew when the shooting and carjacking happened. His family said he was hardworking and just trying to make an honest living for his family. “He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Ron explained. Chris’ daughter, Brooke, said her dad loved taking her fishing. She said she’ll miss his smile the most. “You couldn’t have a dull conversation with him,” she said. Yet maybe the one person who knew Eberhart the best, his wife Joy.
She said they were together 15 1/2 years and just recently got married in February. “He was so kind, loving and would do anything for anybody,” explained Joy Eberhart. Eberhart’s memorial service will be on Thursday, Oct. 20 at Flowery Branch Masonic Lodge. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts can be made to a memorial fund to the Flowery Branch Lodge #212. In the memo section, write “in memory of Chris Eberhart.”
Random.
Senseless.
A normal day.
Wrong place at the wrong time.
Look at how the media describes a black on white murder.
Say his name: Chris Eberhart. Another white victim of black violence in Atlanta.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) released a new video on Monday, first seen by Breitbart News, exposing the soft-on-crime record of Democrat John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s Democrat U.S. Senate nominee, with the race heating up as Election Day is only 36 days away.
The RNC’s roughly minute-long video outlines a handful of violent criminals that Fetterman reportedly voted to have released from prison during his time on the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons, which he chairs by virtue of being the state’s lieutenant governor and always attends.
The Republican National Committee’s video showed that Fetterman voted to release one man who hacked an innocent man to death with garden shears and hired a hitman to kill his accomplice, was the lone vote in a failed bid to commute the sentence of a man who was convicted of murdering a woman with a pair of scissors, and was the only member on the board that voted to release another man who was sentenced to life after killing an 18-year-old for money to buy heroin.
Watch:
The RNC wanted to show that Fetterman’s soft-on-crime record puts criminals first and Pennsylvanians last, in addition to making the Keystone State less safe during his time as lieutenant governor by supporting the soft-on-crime agenda and saying the country needs to “reimagine” policing.
As Fox News reported last month, Fetterman failed to preside over a third of the state’s Senate legislative sessions during his time as lieutenant governor but held a perfect attendance record while he was the chairman of the Board of Pardons.
While the Keystone State Democrat has put a recordnumber of people back on the street through his position on the Board of Pardons, he was also seen in an unearthed 2020 clip saying he agreed with reducing the state’s prison population by a third.
“Biden-Democrat John Fetterman’s record of soft-on-crime activism will only make Democrats’ crime surge worse. Fetterman has done more to help criminals than hardworking Pennsylvanians – he is a convict’s favorite candidate,” RNC spokeswoman Emma Vaughn told Breitbart News.
Democratic Senate hopeful John Fetterman said Tuesday he has "always" supported life sentences for first-degree murderers. But as chairman of the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons, Fetterman voted to release more than a dozen killers serving life sentences on first-degree murder charges, including one man who pleaded guilty in order to avoid the death penalty.
In an interview with the PennLive editorial board, Fetterman said Republicans are "lying" about his record on the Board of Pardons, which he oversees as lieutenant governor. Fetterman, who took issue with Republican claims that he wants to free murderers from prison, said he supports clemency for some convicted of second-degree murder—people who "did not take a life"—but that he "absolutely" supports life sentences for murder in the first degree.
"That’s clear. I’ve always said that," Fetterman told the editorial board.
It’s part of a pattern for Fetterman, who has repeatedly highlighted his support to end mandatory minimum life sentences in Pennsylvania for people convicted of second-degree murder. He has said clemency should be granted to those who "did not pull the trigger" but were instead accomplices to killings.
But a Washington Free Beacon analysis found the Democrat has voted to commute the prison sentences of at least 13 people convicted of first-degree murder, including some who admitted to their crimes. That was the case last year when Fetterman cast the only vote on the Board of Pardons to commute the sentence of Wayne Covington, who was convicted in 1970 for fatally shooting an 18-year-old for money to buy heroin. Covington was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder after he admitted to the killing in order to avoid the death penalty, the Free Beaconreported.
Fetterman’s latest defense comes as Republicans hammer him over his progressive positions and his leadership of the Board of Pardons. Fetterman has said he sought the role of lieutenant governor in order to use the Board of Pardons as a "bully pulpit" to enact progressive criminal justice reform. He has bragged that the board under his watch has voted to free more prisoners than all of his predecessors combined. He has also hired left-wing activists to serve on the board, including a former campaign official who has called to "disarm the police" and who says convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal is her "buddy."
The Republican onslaught appears to have cut into Fetterman’s lead over his challenger, Mehmet Oz. Fetterman led the celebrity doctor by 11 points in August, but the lead has shrunk to just 4 points amid a flurry of ads running in Pennsylvania highlighting Fetterman’s board votes and his other criminal justice positions.
In some cases, Fetterman voted unanimously with the five-member Board of Pardons to grant clemency to first-degree murderers. In Pennsylvania, all five board members must vote for clemency for a prisoner to be freed. According to Fox News, Fetterman voted to free 10 first-degree murderers who were granted clemency. That includes Charles Goldblum, who was convicted in 1977 of stabbing a man to death 26 times with garden shears in a Pittsburgh parking garage. Goldblum tried to hire a hitman to kill his accomplice in the slaying, the Free Beaconreported. Fetterman said when Goldblum was released from prison last year that he was "happy" that the convict would be going home to his family. Fetterman also inaccurately claimed that Goldblum was serving time for second-degree murder, instead of the more serious charge.
In at least three other instances, Fetterman has cast the only vote on the board to free first-degree murderers, often over the wishes of their victims’ families. In addition to the Covington case, Fetterman also voted to free Alexis Rodriguez and John David Brookins, who are serving life terms for first-degree murder. Rodriguez was convicted with four others in the 1989 murder of a police officer’s son. Brookins is serving time for stabbing his girlfriend’s mother to death with a pair of scissors in 1990, Fox News reported.
Fetterman’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Bad Medicine: Doctor Granting Fetterman Clean Bill of Health Is a Campaign Donor
Dr. Clifford Chen has given tens of thousands of dollars to Democrats, including Fetterman
John Fetterman’s campaign is citing a political donor’s note as proof that the Senate hopeful has a clean bill of health.
In a letter released by Fetterman’s team, Dr. Clifford Chen said Fetterman has "significantly improved" following his stroke and "can work full duty in public office." The campaign released the letter—which it called a "medical report"—following calls from media outlets for the Pennsylvania Democrat’s health records.
Chen’s political leanings could raise questions about his medical assessment of Fetterman, whose race against Republican Mehmet Oz could determine which party controls the Senate. According to campaign finance records, Chen has given tens of thousands of dollars over the years to Democratic candidates and party committees. He contributed $1,330 to Fetterman’s campaign, including a $500 donation in June 2021, before he became Fetterman’s doctor. Chen donated to other Senate candidates running in close races this cycle, including Rep. Val Demings (D., Fla.) and Sen. Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.).
"This isn’t about politics," Fetterman campaign spokesman Joe Calvello told the Washington Free Beacon. "It’s an independent, detailed medical report written by John’s primary care doctor based on his latest office visit from last week."
Fetterman initially downplayed the severity of his stroke and has struggled to speak clearly and process sound during campaign events and interviews. Fetterman’s stroke was caused by a heart condition he was diagnosed with in 2017 but failed to disclose until after his health scare.
Fetterman’s supporters have gone on the attack amid questions about his health. His wife Gisele Fetterman said there should be "consequences" for an NBC News reporter who grilled Fetterman last week about his recovery and his reliance on closed-captioning to conduct interviews. She also blasted the Washington Post editorial board last month over a piece asserting that Fetterman had "squandered credibility" by refusing to release his medical records. Gisele Fetterman said the reliably liberal newspaper published the story for "clicks."
Chen said in the letter he has been in routine contact with Fetterman’s neurologist and cardiologist about his recovery.
"Overall, Lt. Governor Fetterman is well and shows strong commitment to maintaining good fitness and health practices. He has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office," Chen wrote.
Chen did not respond to a request for comment.
Fetterman Flip-Flops on Fracking, Now Says He’s ‘Always Supported’ It
'I don’t support fracking, at all, and I never have,' Fetterman said in 2018
Democratic Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman last week said he has always been a supporter of the fracking industry, a statement which contradicts his past comments disavowing the practice, CNN reported on Tuesday.
"I support fracking" Fetterman said in an NBC News interview last week. "I’ve always supported it, as long as it’s done environmentally sound and making sure that we’re not contaminating our waterways."
But in 2018, Fetterman said the opposite in an interview with a YouTube channel uncovered by CNN.
"I don’t support fracking, at all, and I never have," Fetterman said. "I’ve signed the no fossil fuels money pledge. I have never received a dime from any natural gas or oil company whatsoever."
Fetterman's reversal of his position on fracking just weeks ahead of his competitive Senate race against Dr. Mehmet Oz could represent an effort to distance himself from the Democratic Party's green platform as energy prices have reached record highs in the United States.
Fetterman in 2016 criticized fracking in a Reddit comment, calling it a "stain" on Pennsylvania.
"I am not pro-fracking and have stated that if we did things right in this state, we wouldn’t have fracking," Fetterman said. "The industry is a stain on our state and natural resources. … I signed the Food and Water Watch’s pledge to end fracking."
The Fetterman campaign told CNN the Democrat has not changed his position on fracking, saying "throughout his career John has stood up to politicians to fight for U.S. Steel’s right to build fracking wells."
The Biden administration has similarly changed its rhetoric on domestic oil production. While President Joe Biden campaigned on a pledge to end the "ability for the oil industry to continue to drill" and froze gas leases, a spokesman for the White House this month insisted the administration has worked to boost domestic drilling and become less reliant on foreign oil.
Democrat Senate candidate John Fetterman only leads Republican candidate Mehmet Oz by two points in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, a four point shift since June, according to an AARP poll.
Forty-eight percent of likely voters support Fetterman, while 46 percent support Oz. Two percent said they would not vote for either Oz or Fetterman.
The pollster sampled 1,400 likely voters over landlines, cell phones, and SMS-to-web from October 4-12 with a 4.4 margin of error.
Fetterman’s lead has shrunk from June, when the AARP survey found the Democrat was leading by six. The election is in 21 days.
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