Hey Dewey #5
By Dewey Turner
Hey Dewey,
Got any numbers for us?
Counting on you,
Isaac “Fig” Newton
Dear Fig,
I do:
19. Number of loaded handguns J.D. Vance says they found stashed all over his grandmother’s house after she died.
One. Number of times J.D. Vance’s grandmother doused J.D.’s grandfather with lighter fluid and set him on fire, according to Vance’s account in his book Hillbilly Elegy.
12+. Number of guns purchased by the Crooks family over the years for their home arsenal out of which the son, Thomas Matthew, selected an AR15 to shoot Donald Trump and three other men at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
44,000,000. Number of AR15-style guns in circulation in the U.S.
26. Total number of goose figurines + loaded handguns we found stashed all over my mom’s house after she died.
26. Number that were goose figurines.
One. Number of times I served as jury foreman in a case involving two 10-year-old boys, one of whom shot the other near the eye with a BB gun, an incident that escalated into a million-dollar lawsuit between two neighboring families who had once been close friends—the civil litigation finally resolved, legally anyway, with the judge ordering the boy who fired the BB gun to pay for the other boy’s visit to an ophthalmologist, who concluded that while it was possible the slight injury from the BB might mean the wounded boy wouldn’t be able to realize his lifelong dream of becoming a fighter pilot, there didn’t appear to be any real damage to the actual eye.
70. Percentage of freshwater lakes, ponds, reservoirs, and wetlands nationally, by acreage, the Environmental Protection Agency has determined to be too polluted for “primary contact” (i.e. swimming).
42. Percentage of creeks, rivers, and streams nationally, by mileage, the EPA has determined to be too polluted for “primary contact.”
92. Percentage of creeks, rivers, and streams in Virginia, by mileage, the EPA has determined to be too polluted for swimming.
70. Percentage of doctors in Mary Washington Healthcare’s internal medicine residency program who hospital CEO Mike McDermott claims will stay in the Fredericksburg, Virginia, area after their three years in training—and so be able to provide ongoing indigent care if and when the Moss Free Clinic is forced to close after the loss of hospital support.
48. Percentage of doctors in Virginia internal medicine residency programs who over a recent 10-year period actually stayed in the state, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
4. Number of members of the University of Mary Washington Board of Visitors appointed by Governor Glenn Youngkin who work for organizations that are on the advisory board for the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a draconian MAGA action plan for Republicans if they can retake the presidency and put Donald Trump back in the White House.
1,000,000. Number of federal employees who could lose their jobs under policies and executive actions promoted by Project 2025, according to the American Federation of Government Employees.
60,000. Number of civilian federal employees living in Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District.
10. Number of items included in a recent Vanity Fair article titled “Every Terrible Thing J.D. Vance Said About Trump Before Becoming His Running Mate,” including “America’s Hitler,” “a villain and a douche,” “unfit,” “a total fraud,” “noxious,” “reprehensible,” “an idiot,” and “a moral disaster.”
Zero. Number of times, while introducing her husband at the Republican National Convention as the Republican candidate for vice president, Usha Vance said the name “Donald Trump” or mentioned him in any way.
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Dewey Turner spent much of his childhood in Polk County, Florida, and has been trying to leave ever since. But like James Joyce, self-exiled from Dublin, he keeps returning in one way or another. He reports—with some consternation but no real surprise—that a great number of the kids he knew when he was a boy grew up to become Florida Man.
