[jlisenbe]

Not exactly a heart-rending response of concern about a dead young man.

The thread, which I started, is about BOTH sanctuary cities and the wide-open southern border which needs a wall. Reread the first post. Additionally, the subjects of fentanyl importation and human trafficking have been mentioned frequently in this thread, so your refusal to address the topic is...puzzling.

[tomder55]

Sad state of affairs when the voice of reason for the Dems is Fetterman

“I hope Democrats can understand that it isn’t xenophobic to be concerned about the border”

“It’s a reasonable conversation, and Democrats should engage.”


“

Honestly, it’s astonishing. And this isn’t a Fox News kind of statistic. This is the government’s,” he said. “You essentially have Pittsburgh showing up there at the border.”

Fetterman defends 'reasonable' border talks as fellow Dems fume - Live Updates - POLITICO

[jlisenbe]

What a strange world to live in when Fetterman becomes the voice of reason in the dem party. That said, I'm glad he's doing it.

[tomder55]

He is pivoting away from the crazies in the Dems. This border thing is one. His avid pro-Israel stand is another example.
On X he explained that he is not a crazy Dem. He said "I'm not a progressive, I'm just a regular Democrat,
He then went on to blast TikTok for warping American youth's minds.


And now he is an America firster .....not quite MAGA .but getting there, He is strongly opposing the sale of US Steel to a Japanese firm.

Now rhetoric is one thing. The proof of the pudding will be how he votes. in the Senate .

[tomder55]

Salena Zito has an op ed about Fetterman's new moderate stands

She says this is not new ;that his radical lefty .Since it is WSJ I will copy entirely

It’s a warm December morning, and Sen. John Fetterman is walking along the Great Allegheny Passage across the Monongahela River from his home in Braddock. “I spend as much time as I can out here,” he says of the trail, which runs 150 miles from downtown Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Md. Mr. Fetterman has been in the U.S. Senate just under a year, during which he’s recovered from a campaign-season stroke, checked himself into Walter Reed hospital for depression, and ruffled feathers on both sides of the aisle. In September it was reported that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had relaxed the Senate’s unofficial dress code to accommodate Mr. Fetterman’s preference for wearing hoodies and shorts. (That move backfired, leading the body to adopt a formal requirement of business attire.)Of late, however, Mr. Fetterman has drawn the ire of the Democratic left for his unapologetic support of Israel, for his support of a bipartisan solution to the border crisis, and for his cheeky criticisms of the indicted Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.).

None of this is a surprise to Pennsylvania political observers. “Now that his health has finally improved, the national press and the country are finding out the real John Fetterman,” says Jeffrey Brauer, a political scientist at Keystone College. Mr. Brauer thinks that Mr. Fetterman’s difficulty communicating after his May 2022 stroke, combined with his casual dress and his combative approach to moderate primary opponent Conor Lamb led outsiders to assume Mr. Fetterman was a card-carrying progressive.
In an interview with the Journal, Mr. Fetterman says that assumption was mistaken: “I had been stating clearly that I’m not a progressive, I’m not that kind of a label or anything like that,” he says. “I said that before the primary in ’22, and that’s how I’ve always believed. And I think these have all been very easy calls. I follow the moral clarity, not the polls or any silly labels.”
Mr. Fetterman declared last week that “I would be the last man standing to be absolutely there on the Israeli side on this with no conditions.” Last month he blamed both parties for what he described as a reflexive political resistance to a border security deal. “Since you’ve covered me for years,” he says, “you know me, and you know my wife, and I’ve been very clear and supportive of immigration; I think it’s been part of what has made America, America.” Mr. Fetterman’s wife, Gisele, was 7 when her Brazilian mother brought her to the U.S. illegally. She naturalized in 2009.

“Two things can be true at the same time,” the senator continues. “We do have a crisis on the border—and we have to look at the numbers that are the size of Pittsburgh showing up on the border. You can’t just say, ‘Oh yeah, OK. It’ll all work itself out.’ ” He sees border security as a matter of common sense: “I think if you really want to address immigration in the way that it deserves, we first must also have a secure border.”
Since becoming mayor of Braddock in 2006, Mr. Fetterman has often bucked the local and state Democratic Party. In 2016, he ran in a U.S. Senate primary against eventual nominee Katie McGinty. He supported Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton that year and made party officials cringe when he warned that Donald Trump could win Pennsylvania in that year’s general election—as he did. “Anyone that spent time across Pennsylvania would have realized how popular he was and how he connected at a very deep level,” Mr. Fetterman now says.
In 2018, Mr. Fetterman ran for lieutenant governor and surprised everyone—including then-Gov. Tom Wolf—by defeating the incumbent, Michael Stack, making him the state’s first lieutenant governor to lose in a primary election. Mr. Fetterman made local activists unhappy along the way, mostly over his support for the natural-gas industry.
Mr. Brauer says Mr. Fetterman has emerged as a center-left senator in a style akin to that of West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema. “What is most interesting is that while the Pennsylvania senior senator, Bob Casey, has gone from being a major centrist to much more a progressive, the junior senator Fetterman is now being perceived as going from a progressive to a much more independent centrist.”
Mr. Fetterman is proud that he acknowledged his depression publicly: “I realize now that addressing mental health is really critical because I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me and thank me for talking about it, and they have their own personal issue,” he says. “I’ve never been afraid of being judged. My only interest is really trying to help people—because I got lucky and I was able to get the kind of help that I needed. I want that kind of help for anybody—I don’t care, Republican, Democrat, anyone.”
If there is any stress in having the progressive and socialist wing of his party angry at him, it doesn’t show. Mr. Fetterman looks as healthy as he did when he ran for lieutenant governor in 2017—when he was first diagnosed with an irregular heart rhythm, a diagnosis he later admitted he failed to address, and his doctor said ultimately led to his stroke.
“Honestly, I feel fantastic,” he says. “That’s the truth.”

John Fetterman Plays Against Type - WSJ

[jlisenbe]

“I think if you really want to address immigration in the way that it deserves, we first must also have a secure border.”

That's a statement along the lines of the mouse proposing to put a bell around the cat's neck. The question is, how to make the border secure. In my view, if he doesn't advocate for a wall, then he's just playing games. Either a wall or propose something else that's workable. I haven't heard what that something else is.

[tomder55]

His policy page is also short on specifics

Building a Humane, Safe, and Secure Immigration System - John Fetterman

He is right on one thing. Nothing will be done without compromises . The biggest problem with compromise however is that the Dems keep breaking their part of the bargain,