US PolitIX - Michael Cohen Ruined Infrastructure Week

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Amazing that she is alive, but that is the worst thing in this world, for parents to outlive their children.

:sad:
 
It's probably killing him that the entire news cycle the last 2-3 days has been about somebody else. Really that's all he cares about - himself, being the centre of attention and everybody's priority. He is much worse than a toddler.
 
Well, hey, if he wants us to talk about him again, we could go back to discussing all the big bombshell stuff regarding Cohen, Manafort, and his other allies who've completely turned on him this week and further proved that he's in league with some truly criminal sorts. I'm sure he'd LOVE that.

anitram said:
He is much worse than a toddler.
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And yet people still support him. I'd be embarrassed as hell if somebody I voted for acted like such an immature little baby when he didn't get his way, but apparently I'm just weird that way.
 
Diemen said:
Both my parents do. Smart, well-educated and traveled, decent, kind people in almost all aspects. Except... somewhere along the way they mixed up their religious and political beliefs, corrupting both at the same time. They’ve never really recovered, as they have to fall in line with the right wing party line no matter what because it is so inextricably bound up with their religious beliefs that they’d sooner twist their religious beliefs to fit their politics than vice versa. And they consider themselves to be deeply religious people.
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My dad's not religious at all.

Honestly? It's Fox News and conservative talk radio. That's what did it, and I would venture to guess did it for a lot of people in my dad's she bracket.
 
And the GOP will say nothing. Trump attacks one of their own, a war hero, and for a while the face of their party.

All this over some petty feelings
 
rest in peace to john mccain the airman and veteran - i have deep respect for the man's military service and agree 100% that he is a war hero in all aspects of the word. he deserves the utmost praise for his military career and let's absolutely honour him for that.

but i have nothing good to say about john mccain the politician, and quite frankly i'm pretty grossed out at the praise that's being gushed on him here. like, you guys know he's pretty much directly responsible for the rise of the tea party and trump right? he opened that pandora's box by nominating sarah palin and pandering hard for that proto-alt-right/populist/"fuck the libtards" vote. if he had won the US would certainly be in a full-scale war with syria and iran and probably russia by now and thousands of american soldiers would be dead (not to mention civilian casualties that would make iraq look like a birthday party at chuck e cheese), but he was a mostly classy guy so he was "the last decent republican" and now he was a great man deserving of all these flowery tributes because trump personally didn't like him and is being extremely petty after his passing? lol no.

i wouldn't wish the way he died on anyone, he certainly didn't deserve that - but let's not act like he was some great beacon of virtue among the muck of the GOP. he was just one shiny turd in a giant pile of shit.
 
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I've often argued it was Sarah Palin that started us all on this dark path but the truth is it started earlier, in the 90s with Newt Gingrich's "common sense" revolution + the rise of Rush Limbaugh on AM radio. They started to set a different tone and the people calling in to AM radio to express whatever the outrage of the day is are now the same ones that post comments on YouTube videos. Only the medium has changed. The absolute loathing of the Democrats also blossomed with the rise of the Clintons in the early 90s. I'm glad McCain at least recognized that Sarah Palin was a grave mistake and what she represented.

Nevertheless he was part and parcel of a party that needs to be eradicated in its entirety. Republicans are poison - just look at how they are treating one of their own. The fish rots from the head, but this one is rotten all the way past the tail to be frank.
 
the Palin-ization of the GOP started right here. this was the first convention i ever watched, and i remember it as a genuinely horrifying moment:


 
I dunno. Easy to praise McCain or Bush or whatever or whoever (count me out on Reagan). I don’t even remotely like them as politicians, but it’s sort of akin to being a good sport. McCain had some awful initiatives and views, but he played by the rules and committed to our system and generally honored truths. I think there is due respect for anyone like that, especially given current times.

McCain’s Palin choice was the same ill conceived action that was Nixon, who learned that others play dirty and therefore he must too if he wants to win.

You can absolutely blame him for that, but you can’t say those were his views.
 
Palin wasn't the start of the Republican civil war - she was an inevitability.

Pat Buchanan challenging Bush (which ironically helped bring the Clintons to power) started us down this road. Fox News and Limbaugh came quickly after - Newt's Contract With America...

The irony is that W Bush was a stop in the movement - a reestablishment of the Republican establishment. But his presidency ending in disaster opened up the flood gates to the Tea Party and everything that's followed.

Palin was an attempt to bridge the divide between the two sides - but the party was beyond saving even at that point. People just didn't fully realize it yet.
 
LuckyNumber7 said:
I dunno. Easy to praise McCain or Bush or whatever or whoever (count me out on Reagan). I don’t even remotely like them as politicians, but it’s sort of akin to being a good sport. McCain had some awful initiatives and views, but he played by the rules and committed to our system and generally honored truths. I think there is due respect for anyone like that, especially given current times.
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that's a lovely, idealistic notion and one that i would have probably agreed with only a few years ago. take the high road and all. if you show respect and courtesy you can expect the same in return, etc.

but let's imagine if he was the same guy but had a D next to his name instead of an R - you and i and all of us here know for a fact that everyone to the right of obama would already be dancing and shitting on his grave. they wouldn't be expressing anything close to due respect, they'd be *celebrating*. they would already have candidates lined up ready to try to take his seat at the first opportunity. there would be nothing respectful about it - it would just be a political opportunity there to be seized. they're already using it that way, as i've read already that right-wing politicians bitching about the democrats and how they're not being "respectful" of a war hero while completely ignoring that their dipshit-in-chief is the worst offender of all in that regard.

simply put, the GOP would not give a single genuine fuck about john mccain if he were a democrat. it's nice to think that we should give "due respect" but while the democrats are trying to take the high road and avoid pissing anyone off, they are, as usual, convincing no-one and accomplishing fuck-all.
 
DaveC said:
that's a lovely, idealistic notion and one that i would have probably agreed with only a few years ago. take the high road and all. if you show respect and courtesy you can expect the same in return, etc.

but let's imagine if he was the same guy but had a D next to his name instead of an R - you and i and all of us here know for a fact that everyone to the right of obama would already be dancing and shitting on his grave. they wouldn't be expressing anything close to due respect, they'd be *celebrating*. they would already have candidates lined up ready to try to take his seat at the first opportunity. there would be nothing respectful about it - it would just be a political opportunity there to be seized. they're already using it that way, as i've read already that right-wing politicians bitching about the democrats and how they're not being "respectful" of a war hero while completely ignoring that their dipshit-in-chief is the worst offender of all in that regard.

simply put, the GOP would not give a single genuine fuck about john mccain if he were a democrat. it's nice to think that we should give "due respect" but while the democrats are trying to take the high road and avoid pissing anyone off, they are, as usual, convincing no-one and accomplishing fuck-all.
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I wasn’t approaching this as taking the high road. I was suggesting, once again, there’s an acceptable type of politician from the fallout of this new age of politics that is welcome in what I imagine and hope to be the “new right” of the future - the current democrats. I accept folks like McCain or Bush, because they do not produce the levels of dysfunctionality, hatred, or bigotry by this new way of doing things (disinformation and hype).

This new Trumpian era hasn’t even scathed its potential. The next term or predecessors of this “movement” have the ability to wreak much more havoc, causing chaos for their own future desired harmony.

Folks like McCain were not about that. They respected the shitty game that they played. And for the political landscape moving forward, I hope those people can stay and represent what I hope is the new right, and a new left emerges out of it. Respect for the system even when you’re not in charge is critical to a thriving system. One would argue that growing obstructionism by Democrats during Bush led to immense obstructionism by repubes during Obama, and folks like Nancy Pelosi also share a responsibility in the tribalism we have to this day. By that thought path, I think anyone who doesn’t partake in that nonsense is honorable in some right.
 
Until politicians of all stripes agree to major reform meant to remove certain incentives to behave like assholes, nothing will change.

First, term limits. Second, an absolute ban of significant length (minimum 5 years) from lobbying after leaving public office which should be broadly defined to not include just members of Congress but their major aides. I don't mean secretaries/exec assistants and pages, etc but the reality is we have dozens of political aides, whether working as policy analysts or bridges to the lobby industry and they too should be banned. This has to be strictly enforced. That is just the beginning of a true drainage of the swamp. Dismantling the two-party system would be the next major step, but that is more complex and problematic.

And even if you do all these things, the effect will be limited so long as we have the sort of social media we have today and outlets like Fox News. But at least the politicians would have less personal/immediate motive to do somebody else's bidding.
 
LuckyNumber7 said:
I wasn’t approaching this as taking the high road. I was suggesting, once again, there’s an acceptable type of politician from the fallout of this new age of politics that is welcome in what I imagine and hope to be the “new right” of the future - the current democrats. I accept folks like McCain or Bush, because they do not produce the levels of dysfunctionality, hatred, or bigotry by this new way of doing things (disinformation and hype).

This new Trumpian era hasn’t even scathed its potential. The next term or predecessors of this “movement” have the ability to wreak much more havoc, causing chaos for their own future desired harmony.

Folks like McCain were not about that. They respected the shitty game that they played. And for the political landscape moving forward, I hope those people can stay and represent what I hope is the new right, and a new left emerges out of it. Respect for the system even when you’re not in charge is critical to a thriving system. One would argue that growing obstructionism by Democrats during Bush led to immense obstructionism by repubes during Obama, and folks like Nancy Pelosi also share a responsibility in the tribalism we have to this day. By that thought path, I think anyone who doesn’t partake in that nonsense is honorable in some right.
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i get what you're saying, but i also feel like you might not be factoring in his hawkishness or the near-certainty that we'd be in a full-blown ground war with libya, syria and iran if he had been president in 2011/2012. he joked about bombing iran during his campaign (and was met with laughter and applause). we all know he repeatedly called for major interventions in syria (a russian ally). if that had happened there's a very good chance we could be in a no-shit shooting war (or worse) with russia right now. i strongly doubt he would have shown the restraint that obama did during the crimea/ukraine crisis, too.

the fact all that's not on his record is *despite* him - i have a hard time considering someone so willing to risk global catastrophe to be "honorable"(again, military service in vietnam aside).
 
??*♂️ it’s not that I’m not factoring in his hawkishness. I’m not supporting him and I never did. It has nothing to do with his hawkishness.
 
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