micnd90

https://archive.is/kW3dk

When Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, showed up at a hearing on May 8 with Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, his colleagues were surprised to see him. Until then, his chair on the dais of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee had sat empty all year. But under intense scrutiny about his mental health and his ability to function in his job, Mr. Fetterman has been in damage control mode, attending hearings and votes that he had been routinely skipping over the past year. His colleagues, some of whom have privately described him as absent from the Senate and troubled when he is there, are trying to be supportive.

“Good thoughts, Senator Fetterman,” Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, said encouragingly after Mr. Fetterman finished his turn questioning Mr. Altman. Mr. Fetterman does not enjoy participating in these hearings that he has sat through in recent weeks as he seeks to prove that he is capable of performing the job he was elected to do until 2028. In fact, at a critical moment for the country, he appears to have little interest in the day-to-day work of serving in the United States Senate.

In an interview, Mr. Fetterman, who represents 13 million people, said he felt he had been unfairly shamed into fulfilling senatorial duties, such as participating in committee work and casting procedural votes on the floor, dismissing them as a “performative” waste of time. Instead, he said he was “showing up because people in the media have weaponized” his absenteeism on Capitol Hill to portray him as mentally unfit, when in fact it is a product of a decision to spend more time at home and less on the mundane tasks of being a senator. “My doctor warned years ago: After it’s public that you are getting help for depression, people will weaponize that,” Mr. Fetterman said in his office this week. “Simple things are turned. That’s exactly what happened.” He added: “It shook me that people are willing to weaponize that I got help.”

It is the latest chapter in Mr. Fetterman’s rocky time in the national political spotlight, where at the height of his popularity he harbored aspirations to run for president in 2028. Now, he is aggrieved that such a dream appears out of reach. And for that, he largely blames his decision to speak out two years ago about his mental health struggles, which he said gave rise to all that has followed, including a recent series of unflattering reports detailing erratic behavior, a poor attendance record and general disinterest in doing his job.

To recap: Mr. Fetterman, the 6-foot-8-inch, self-proclaimed champion of working-class voters, had a life-threatening stroke in 2022 in the middle of the most competitive Senate race in the country, which he went on to win. Shortly after being sworn in, he checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to be treated for depression for six weeks, and appeared to make a remarkable recovery as he began speaking out about the importance of getting help when needed.

He was an outspoken supporter of Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack and started picking more fights with the left. His pro-Israel stance gave him a sense of purpose on Capitol Hill in a job he otherwise did not enjoy. And then, at some point in the middle of last year, he pulled even further back from participating in many aspects of the Senate, like attending committee meetings, casting votes and holding town halls.

It was around that time that his former chief of staff wrote to Mr. Fetterman’s doctor that his boss was spiraling out of control and that his mental health issues could cost him his life. That letter, first published by New York Magazine earlier this month, raised a new round of questions about Mr. Fetterman’s behavior and performance in the Senate.

Sitting in his office last week, dressed in his uniform of a black Carhartt hoodie and gym shorts, Mr. Fetterman toggled between humor, anger and emotion in discussing his current situation. He expressed deep frustration over the constant questions about his mental health, portraying himself as the victim of untenable circumstances. “This became the Belichick girlfriend story of politics,” he quipped at one point, referring to the recent media attention around the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill football coach. “It just keeps going and going.”

After his discharge from Walter Reed in 2023, Mr. Fetterman embraced a role as a stigma-busting spokesman for the power of treatment and used his challenges as an opportunity to bridge partisan politics. “Red or blue, if you have depression, get help, please,” he said in an interview later that year. These days, Mr. Fetterman is not so sure it was wise to talk about any of that. He doesn’t think it’s anyone’s business whether, as some former aides have suggested, he is or isn’t following the regimen that his doctors recommended to treat his mental health issues. He sings the praises only of Mounjaro, the injectable diabetes and weight-loss drug that he credits with making him feel “a decade younger, as well as clearer-headed and more optimistic than I’d been in years.”

Still, there have been big gaps in his attendance. Since his return from Walter Reed, Mr. Fetterman has missed more votes than all but two senators, both of whom were campaigning for president last year: Republicans JD Vance of Ohio and Tim Scott of South Carolina, according to a New York Times analysis of Senate roll call records. This year, the analysis found, Mr. Fetterman also has missed more votes than all but two of his colleagues: Senators Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, and Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont. Ms. Murray has been absent to care for her ailing husband, while Mr. Sanders has been on his “Fighting Oligarchy Tour,” speaking out against President Trump and drawing a total of 265,000 people to events across 12 states so far, according to a spokeswoman.

Mr. Fetterman, who has said that being away from his family is heartbreaking and “the worst part of the job,” says he has missed votes to spend more time at home with his children. He seethes over the idea that he must show up for Monday night votes — a staple of the Senate calendar often known as “bed checks,” a term he finds paternalistic and demeaning — rather than skip them and enjoy an extra day with his children. “The votes I missed were overwhelmingly procedural; they’re even called ‘bed check’ votes,” he said. “I had to make a decision: getting here and sticking my thumb in the door for three seconds for a procedural vote or spend Monday night as a dad-daughter date.”

He has also often missed Thursday evening votes because he likes to check in with his father, who recently had a heart attack. “I would go visit my dad instead of a throwaway vote,” he said. Hearings also seem to him like a waste of time. Senators question witnesses in order of seniority, leaving Mr. Fetterman, a first-term lawmaker, feeling that by the time his turn comes around, there’s nothing left to ask. He has told people it is like making a plate out of the dregs of a buffet bar.

Mr. Fetterman has also foregone events in his state. He has avoided hosting town halls with his constituents because he does not want to get heckled by protesters. “I just want to be in a room full of love,” he has told people. At the same time, Mr. Fetterman has shed staff. And he has grown more isolated from his Democratic colleagues. (Mr. Fetterman detests the word “isolated,” which he thinks is just code for mental health issues.) Despite attempts from his friends in Congress to draw him out, Mr. Fetterman still does not attend the weekly Democratic caucus lunch in the Capitol. He quit the caucus group chat, he said, because he couldn’t figure out how to turn off the notifications and most of the conversation was insignificant senatorial chitchat.

“It’s not like we were on a chain planning to bomb Yemen,” he said, referring jokingly to leaked Signal chats among top Trump officials. “It’s mostly just happy birthdays. Some days, it’s just emojis.” Pennsylvania voters who elected Mr. Fetterman in 2022 knew that he was a gruff guy; it was part of his political brand. But his absence has raised questions about whether he is doing the job for which he was sent to Washington. Some constituents have complained that they cannot reach him or his office.

And it has prompted alarm among his Democratic colleagues. “This is very stressful,” Senator Peter Welch, the Vermont Democrat who is Mr. Fetterman’s closest friend in the caucus, said in an interview. Mr. Welch had dinner this monthwith Mr. Fetterman and Senator Katie Britt, Republican of Alabama. He conceded that the scrutiny about his colleague’s behavior has been difficult for Mr. Fetterman. “John is hanging in,” he said. “It’s fair to say this is pretty stressful. This is a hard thing.”

Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and minority leader, recently encouraged Democrats at one of the weekly lunches to do more to reach out and offer support to Mr. Fetterman. And he met with Mr. Fetterman last Thursday to discuss how he is holding up amid the renewed scrutiny of his conduct. Ms. Klobuchar also met with Mr. Fetterman last week to discuss his priorities on the Agriculture Committee, where she serves as the top Democrat. “I enjoy working with him and appreciate his perspectives,” she said.

But Mr. Fetterman’s behavior can be jarring to some people who have seen him up close. In the letter to his doctor last year, Mr. Fetterman’s former chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, wrote that he was concerned that the senator was not sticking to his treatment plan. Former staff aides who have worked closely with him describe erratic behavior and someone who is disconnected from his job. Mr. Fetterman shrugs off those concerns as the griping of anonymous sources with axes to grind.

As his alienation from his party has grown, some Republicans have begun courting Mr. Fetterman, a development that distresses some of his former aides, who argue that he is allowing himself to be used by Republicans to attack other Democrats. “Really, really cool dude,” Senator Bernie Moreno, Republican of Ohio, said of Mr. Fetterman. “Chuck Schumer is a drooling moron compared to John Fetterman.” Mr. Fetterman was offended at the suggestion that his Republican friends were exploiting him for political purposes. “That’s insulting and patronizing to say,” he said. “There’s no political upside for them to be nice to me. They realize what it is, and it’s a smear.” He said he enjoys the company of G.O.P. lawmakers and agrees with them on several issues — unequivocal support for Israel, the need to crack down on immigration, the downsides of cancel culture — but would never switch parties. “I’m not going to become a Republican; there’s no lane for me,” he said. “I’m very pro-L.G.B.T.Q.+, pro-choice, pro-union, pro-Medicaid. It’s just not a good match for either of us.”

Senator Peter Welch, the Vermont Democrat who is close with Mr. Fetterman, at a hearing last month. “It’s fair to say this is pretty stressful,” Mr. Welch, who was the first Democratic senator to publicly call for former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to step aside last summer, said that he did not harbor similar concerns about Mr. Fetterman’s ability to do his job.

“The health issues of a member of the House or the Senate are important, he said, “but they’re not as existential as who is our candidate for president.” But some Democrats outside of Congress speak openly about their wish to see him go. “The regrettable fact is that John Fetterman is not doing the job he was elected to perform,” said Kierstyn Zolfo, a member of the progressive grass roots group Indivisible, who lives in Bucks County in Pennsylvania. “It makes me very sad, because I have supported him for so long, and I worked so hard to get him elected. But he’s just not getting the job done.”

Livestream link: https://live.totalsportekhd.com/Napoli-vs-Cagliari/39507

Context: Today Napoli and Inter Milan will play their last matchday of the season. Napoli is currently first and Inter is currently second. If Napoli wins today, they win the league, destiny is in their hands. Napoli is Diego Maradona's team, they are also not owned by billionares. Napoli represent Naples and Southern Italy, which is the more working class region (Northern Italy is where the bourgeoisie region).

https://archive.is/HtBzn

Gooners keep gooning and not winning.

https://archive.is/L2pHb

The 155 vacancies the agency is seeking to fill by May 27 include key weather forecasting positions at offices in coastal Texas and Louisiana that could soon face hurricane threats when the Atlantic season begins in a few weeks. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the weather service’s parent agency, is also asking large numbers of meteorologists to move to offices in Alaska and across the northern Plains in Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota. Without the transfers, there are fears that some offices could struggle to monitor weather threats, issue aviation forecasts and launch weather balloons around-the-clock, according to current and former weather service officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the agency. Agency officials did not immediately respond to questions from The Post.

The solicitations lay bare how significantly the Trump administration has whittled away the corps of public servants responsible for the forecasting, warnings and information that can protect lives and property when extreme weather strikes. An estimated 500 National Weather Service employees have taken early retirements or been fired this year, out of a staff that numbered more than 4,200 before President Donald Trump began his second term, the officials said. But the action is spurring some hope that, after five months of efforts to cut staff, administration officials are heeding concerns that the nation could now be less prepared for major storms or other events, said Brian LaMarre, who retired from the weather service last month after a career that included 17 years as meteorologist in charge of the forecasting office in Tampa, Florida.

The number of vacancies underscores how in the administration’s efforts to streamline government and boost efficiency it may be threatening core agency functions, he said. “We’ve got to be careful on how much efficiency we’re looking for,” said LaMarre, who had been working on a National Weather Service initiative to reinvent the agency’s staffing model. “The more efficient we make something, sometimes it becomes less effective.”

Such requests for transfers have always been relatively common at such a large agency but never covered so many positions and rarely included an offer of moving expenses, the officials who spoke with The Post said. The vacant positions include 76 meteorologists, including rank-and-file forecasters as well as the managers who run each of the service’s 122 forecast offices around the country. Other roles include technicians and analysts who are essential to keeping agency radar and computer systems running.

On the Gulf Coast, the Lake Charles, Louisiana, office needs a meteorologist-in-charge and two senior meteorologists. In the forecasting office that oversees the Houston region, the agency is also seeking a meteorologist-in-charge and a senior meteorologist.

The office in Fairbanks, Alaska, needs five meteorologists. The Hanford, California, office is seeking four meteorologists, an electronics systems analyst, an electronics technician and an information technology officer. An office in Goodland, Kansas, needs three senior meteorologists, while several offices in Arkansas, Michigan, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming are seeking two senior meteorologists. Offices overseeing the Cleveland and Cincinnati regions are seeking a meteorologist-in-charge.

NOAA is asking four meteorologists to move to the U.S. territory of Guam to fill forecasting positions there.

https://archive.is/Tz7WU

"Maybe"

Learn more about Mosab Abu Toha

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/people/mosab-toha

https://x.com/MosabAbuToha

https://www.tiktok.com/@islamchanneltv/video/7503502831043874070

https://archive.is/tjdZ2

Rebecca Jaramillo stepped out of the Santa Fe jail and into the cold one night in January 2021. After two days in a cell, she was free, but no one was there to pick her up. So, with a snowstorm coming, she began the long walk toward town.

The jail in Santa Fe, surrounded by barbed wire and tumbleweed, sits on a remote stretch of highway far from the city’s bustling plaza and historic churches. It is nearly two miles down the highway to the closest gas station, three miles to where a sidewalk starts and eight miles to the nearest homeless shelter.

Ms. Jaramillo, 33, made it only about a mile from the jail that night before she was hit by a sheriff’s deputy driving a police pickup truck at 57 miles per hour. Her body was thrown more than 100 feet, and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

of course it has to be a cop driving a pickup truck