Just what we need:
The Food and Drug Administration has approved a potent new opioid painkiller, despite warnings from physician critics who say the drug will contribute to the addiction epidemic.
And notice this:
On Wednesday, ahead of the FDA’s final decision, four U.S. senators — Ed Markey, Claire McCaskill, Joe Manchin and Richard Blumenthal — sent a letter to Gottlieb, the FDA’s commissioner, echoing concerns from Brown and Public Citizen and asking the agency to deny approval to Dsuvia until Brown and the full drug safety committee were allowed to participate.
I told you McCaskill is great. And so is Manchin. I hope they both win their races on Tuesday. But my question is: why just these four? Where is everybody else? Lying snugly in the pockets of the drug industry?
Please don’t vote for people until you see them take a firm stand on opioids.
Clarissa's Blog 
I dunno.
Markey is married to a a public health advocate. Blumenthal sued tobacco companies to reimburse Connecticut for Medicaid expenses resulting from smoking. As for Manchin, we know West Virginia has a huge crisis with opiates. I don’t know what’s going on in Missouri with opiate abuse.
https://polldaddy.com/js/rating/rating.js
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I don’t know anything about Markey and Blumenthal but I’m glad they are onboard.
It’s bad in Missouri with opioids. Really bad. So McCaskill has to stand with her people. But it’s bad in other places, too. Southern Illinois is suffering a lot. I constantly hear from students, my sister is an addict so I’m raising her kids, my best friend died of an overdose yesterday, my dad is an addict, several of my high school friends are dead. It’s devastating.
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Surprised Sherrod Brown didn’t get in on this. I’ve seen him take a firm stance in the past so I trust him on the issue, but this is a missed opportunity.
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Is it true that he might lose on Tuesday? This would be an enormous loss. I hope Ohio doesn’t let us down!
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I mean, nothing is ever certain in elections. But it’s very unlikely that he will. Sherrod Brown is very popular and Jim Renacci has run a laughably terrible campaign. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sherrod won by double digits.
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Very good! I should stop watching Fox News. They have a lot of wishful thinking going on around this election. I’m starting to feel bad for them they are trying so hard to be upbeat.
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Yeah, that’s definitely 100% wishful thinking. Even a good night in Ohio for Republicans is still going to end with a Sherrod Brown victory.
When Josh Mandel dropped out of the race, I was sad because I didn’t think we couldn’t get a better candidate to run against. Everyone hates Mandel, especially people in rural areas. But even he cannot live up to Renacci’s pure incompetence. It’s like he didn’t even try. I think there’s a significant number of voters who still haven’t even heard of him. This bad headline probably helped him just by getting his name recognition up:
https://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2018/10/jim_renacci_defends_flying_on.html
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This shows how touch Renacci is with Ohioans when he’s campaigning:
‘When a GOP county commissioner asked Renacci how he plans to support programs for recovering addicts like her son, he responded with a principled but tone-deaf riff about how the real epidemic is government spending. “For everyone who says we need money for opioids, someone else wants money for cancer,” he said. “There’s only so much money!”’
A real man of the people. That’s from this article: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/09/17/ohio-2018-elections-senior-citizens-sherrod-brown-dewine-cordray-219914
Brown is also popular with Trump supporters and Republicans. Good article about that from a while back:
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/07/02/ohio-din-ohio-democratic-emocratic-u-s-senator-sen-sherrod-brown-may-ride-trump-country-re-election/725006002/
I only watched part of one debate but Brown was good at attacking Renacci on trade. Renacci ended up coming out with that mealy mouthed shit about soybean farmers that anti-tariff Dems always do. Brown across as standing with Trump on this issue while Renacci seemed weak.
A poll from the primaries showed that 13% of Trump supporters planned to vote for Brown regardless of who won the GOP primaries. I hope we meet or exceed that.
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The comment on opioids – Christ Lord. The guy is a congenital idiot.
I’m very in favor of attracting Trump voters. Many of them voted for Obama twice. They are not in the least hopeless. We need politicians who know how to talk to them.
Thank you, I feel reassured.
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