What Realy Ails Sen Fetterman?
Sakharov openly criticized the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, prompting the Brezhnev regime to take drastic action against him. . . . He wasn’t just exiled or “banished.” And he was never officially “arrested.” Rather, he was removed from the proximity to power for what the Brezhnev regime called “his own good.”
. . . Sakharov had been diagnosed in absentia with “sluggish schizophrenia,” a condition identified and articulated (i.e. “made up”) by the founding father of Soviet psychiatry, Andrei Snezhnevsky. Like countless others in the Soviet Union, Sakharov ran afoul of the regime, and, as a result, was labeled “mentally unfit” by that regime.
. . . The Soviet Union was a monstrous place that did monstrous things to nonconformists and called it “concern” for their mental health.
Enter Senator John Fetterman.
The piece goes on to insist that the media reports of Fetterman's mental decline are all anonymous, at second- or third-hand, and aren't medical diagnoses. Instead, they stem entirely from the Democrat left that finds his pro-Israel, anti-Hamas stance inconvenient. But this neglects a key piece of evidence:
Video from earlier this year shows Sen. John Fetterman getting in an argument with an airline crew over the proper way to wear his seatbelt on a flight to Pittsburgh.
. . . The video, which has gone viral, shows an airline crew member asking Fetterman to make sure his seatbelt is visible to the flight crew, citing federal regulations. What ensued was what appeared to be a back-and-forth between the senator and the airline crew member, though many of Fetterman’s responses are inaudible, occasionally raising his hands.
Some of his responses include: “I put my seatbelt on” and “Yes, it is” in regards to his seat belt being fastened.
“If you want to go to Pittsburgh, it’s simple, you have to follow our instructions or be asked to get off the airplane. We’re not asking much,” the airline crew member said at one point. The crew member had also offered Fetterman a seatbelt extender so it could more comfortably fit around his sweatshirt.
While Fetterman's conduct may be subject to interpretation, it's nevertheless reasonable to assume he's a traveler experienced and sophisticated enough to realize that refusal to cooperate with airline personnel enforcing safety regulations will lead to nothing but delay in his own travel plans and possible removal from the flight, all for the sake of a very minor inconvenience, not to mention bad publicity. This is clearly more than just a whispering campaign.There have been questions about Fetterman's health and judgment throughout his career. According to Wikipedia,
Fetterman was criticized for an incident in North Braddock in January 2013 when he heard a sound he thought was gunfire and followed an unarmed jogger, whom he detained with a shotgun. The jogger, Chris Miyares, a Black American, said that what Fetterman thought were gunshots were kids shooting bottle rockets. , , , Miyares claimed that Fetterman pointed the shotgun at his chest while he loaded the gun and then aimed the gun at his face.
His health history is complex:
According to Fetterman's chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, Fetterman has struggled with depression throughout his life.
In 2017, Fetterman's feet suddenly began to swell and he was subsequently hospitalized for testing. At that time, he was diagnosed by cardiologist Ramesh Chandra with "atrial fibrillation, an irregular heart rhythm, along with a decreased heart pump", although this diagnosis was not known publicly until Fetterman's stroke in May 2022.
. . . On June 4, 2019, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Fetterman "collapsed" while presiding over the State Senate; he became wobbly and grabbed the lectern to prevent himself from falling over, and a member of the Capitol's nursing staff came to examine him. Afterward, Fetterman's spokesperson said he had become overheated and was "back to normal".
On May 13, 2022 [at age 52], Fetterman had an ischemic stroke and was hospitalized. The stroke was induced by a clot caused by atrial fibrillation (irregular heart rhythm). Because Fetterman also had cardiomyopathy, his doctors implanted a pacemaker and defibrillator. He was discharged from the hospital on May 22, 2022.
What nobody but nobody has mentioned is something I've suspected ever since I learned about Fetterman's stroke at the time: the guy was a cokehead. This is nothing but a medical truism:
Cardiovascular disease (CVD), a disease typically associated with aging and the definitive leading cause of death worldwide, now threatens young and middle-aged populations. Recreational abuse of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and amphetamine-type stimulants has been an escalating public health problem for decades, but now use of these substances has become a significant contributor to early-onset CVD.
It appears that there have beern troubling patterns in Fetterman's life for the past year. At the Wikipedia link,
On June 9, 2024, Fetterman and his wife were involved in a two-car crash in Maryland. They were hospitalized but quickly released. Fetterman was found to be at fault for the crash after rear-ending another vehicle while speeding.
In a CBS followup on the more recent reports,
In the 2024 letter to [Walter Reed] Dr. David Williamson, [former chief of staff Adam] Jentleson warned that Fetterman was not seeing his doctors, had pushed out the people who were supposed to help him stay on his recovery plan and might not be taking his prescribed medications. Jentleson also said Fetterman had been driving recklessly and exhibiting paranoia, isolating him from colleagues.
Grandiose behavior, like that reflected in his dispute with the airline crew, depression, and paranoia are all associated with cocaine use, which in fact is common among celebrities and others at Fetterman's level of society. This would certainly make any prudent person hesitant to associate very closely with someone like that, and it does appear that Trump, while happy enough to have Fetterman say good things about him now and then, is steering a generally safe course and avoiding Fetterman overall.But there can be little question that anyone in Fetterman's medical condition, if he continues to ignore medical advice, and especially if he's resumed cocaine use, is unlikely to live a whole lot longer in any case. I have a hard time understanding why some on the right feel they need to defend him.
UPDATE: Mark Halperin says reporters know more than they can say:
