Friday, November 8

Gerry Connolly, Democratic Congressman, announces that he is a victim of cancer

Avatar of Evaristo Lara

By Evaristo Lara

08 Nov 2024, 1:49 PM EST

Gerry Connolly, Democratic congressman from Virginia, announced that he has been suffering from cancer for a long time of esophagus and will soon begin undergoing treatment.

The 74-year-old politician who represents Virginia’s 11th congressional district since 2009, and who He recently won re-election after defeating Republican Mike Van Meter, a Navy veteran and former FBI agent.issued a statement addressing the health issue that will likely lead him to occasionally be absent from his duties.

“It was a surprise because, except for some intermittent abdominal pain, I had no symptoms.

I am going to undergo chemotherapy and immunotherapy immediately. Cancer can be tough, but so am I. “I’m going to face it the only way I know how: with Irish fight and humor,” he wrote.

As a member of the House Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees, Gerry Connolly analyzes government investments made with federal contractors and has even pushed bills focused on reducing the number of reports that federal agencies typically file before purchasing technology.

Gerry Connolly is a vocal opponent of providing unconditional aid to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister. (Credit: Cliff Owen/AP)

Four years ago, Connolly was elected president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and, as a matter of his personal political positions, he is critical of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister.

“You cannot continue providing offensive weapons to a government if it refuses to respect the laws of war,” Connolly recently noted about the rejection that the authorities of the Jewish nation showed to the approach of ending their offensive in the Gaza Strip. and about stopping the extension of the war to other nations in the Middle East with the implicit risk of unleashing a larger war.

Gerry Connolly is a Democrat who, after representing a community with a large Asian American population for nine terms, is aware of how delicate it could be for a nation like China to come to support a country threatened by Israel and from there derive his comments to be more careful with the support extended to Israel in its fight to eradicate terrorism promoted by organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

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