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Nov 2023 Mod notice:


There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.

If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines before posting here.

Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.

If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules when posting here.


In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.

Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

thok That's Dr. Title, thank you! (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Non-Canon
That's Dr. Title, thank you!
#253076: Aug 25th 2018 at 7:10:51 PM

Mc Cain's reputation would look a lot better if Citizen's United didn't utterly gut Mc Cain-Feingold.

It's still would probably be a bad reputation.

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#253077: Aug 25th 2018 at 7:11:06 PM

[up]x4 I'm not saying that drawing it out is good, I don't want to watch something like that again. It's just that it feels like one day at most is too short.

Edited by RainehDaze on Aug 25th 2018 at 3:13:12 PM

DrunkenNordmann from Exile Since: May, 2015
#253078: Aug 25th 2018 at 7:11:53 PM

Have any of you felt sympathy for Osama Bin Laden when he was assassinated

You don't have to sympathise with a dead person to think that figurative or even literal grave-dancing might be a bad idea.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Aug 25th 2018 at 4:13:55 PM

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#253079: Aug 25th 2018 at 7:12:30 PM

I can certainly see both sides of the gravedancing thing. On one hand Republican policy often kills people, and do people who kill people who they are supposed to support as a byproduct of their policies are considered pretty low on my list of people I'd vote for or feel sorry for. On the other hand, that is a terrible way to go, and while his policies may have had terrible side effects they could also be made in error and he was not the sole or even the biggest cause of these effects sometimes, and ignorance, even deadly ignorance I feel is a lesser sin then active malice. Plus he often did help people, and actually sacrificed for his country.

Maybe it is just me comparing him to our current Hitler Youth leader in charge, but I can't find the will to not feel sympathy for him. I understand others who can however, and I won't make a judgement if you feel the effects of his policies outweigh the good he did for the world.

R.I.P. is all I will say.

@Obama's tweet: Class act as always, I miss him as our leader. sad

Edited by Wildcard on Aug 25th 2018 at 10:16:29 AM

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#253080: Aug 25th 2018 at 7:12:52 PM

And things like that are why I say I'm not going to tell people how to feel. You probably should do the same.

Really, it's not even about deserving anything. Some people can't just go "I don't care."

This.

I don't really feel sympathy for or about Mc Cain but I don't see any benefit to going on about it or for that matter questioning those who do.

You don't have to sympathise with a dead person to think that figurative or even literal grave-dancing might be a bad idea.

This too, it's just not a good idea that will lower the quality of the discourse in the thread.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 25th 2018 at 10:15:41 AM

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#253081: Aug 25th 2018 at 7:13:33 PM

NVM.

Edited by LSBK on Aug 25th 2018 at 9:13:19 AM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#253082: Aug 25th 2018 at 7:14:27 PM

NVM

Edited by M84 on Aug 25th 2018 at 10:14:21 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
Wyldchyld (Old as dirt)
#253083: Aug 25th 2018 at 7:18:35 PM

Wrong news article.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 25th 2018 at 3:21:23 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#253084: Aug 25th 2018 at 7:20:08 PM

I choose to believe the hearts and prayers were sincere from Hillary.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#253085: Aug 25th 2018 at 7:22:33 PM

Likely so. Unlike John McCain, she's a good person.

He was selfish, corrupt, grotesquely racist, a hypocrite and did all he could to assist his party in destroying political norms to make white supremacy the law of the land, foisted Sarah Palin on us and helped open the door that one day led to Trump. He was a terrible person.

I am still sad for his passing and for his family.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#253086: Aug 25th 2018 at 7:35:55 PM

I think anyone who stuck with the Republican Party as long as he did can't be called a good person. There was a time when I believe it wasn't completely awful but that time passed a long way back.

I don't blame him for Sarah Palin, that was a stupid political move and everything I've read shows how much he hated the woman.

I note he refused to run a campaign on white supremacy, which I'm scared would have worked in hindsight.

And he enabled the Republican party for years with only a minimum of pushback....but he did push back a few times where it counted.

So I save my hatred for other people.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#253087: Aug 25th 2018 at 7:38:24 PM

He ran his campaign on dogwhistles, not open white supremacy. Seriously, check out the article I posted on the last page.

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#253088: Aug 25th 2018 at 7:40:31 PM

Did he push back when the Republican party didn't let Obama appoint a judge to the USSC?

hardcorefakes coolest_guy from probably America Since: Oct, 2015 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
coolest_guy
#253089: Aug 25th 2018 at 7:56:47 PM

Tortured at the peak of your life, and then died torturously.

At least he died on his own terms.

tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Professional Forum Ninja
#253090: Aug 25th 2018 at 8:34:36 PM

My problem specifically is his last bill he voted on is a mess of a tax relief for the wealthy we'll be fixing for years.

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#253091: Aug 25th 2018 at 9:17:38 PM

I’d remind people that Marq is coming at this from the perspective of someone in the Middle East, a region that has suffered greatly under the hawkism pushed by Mc Cain.

Mc Cain strongly represented the foreign policy ideas that were seen under Bush (with the exception of torture), as such people who see such foreign policy as monstrous are likly to see Mc Cain the same way.

That's definitely a big part of it, even if I wasn't consciously thinking about it. I do not exaggerate when I say that I was stupefied by his 2008 election platform being almost word-for-word "I will continue all of President Bush's policies". Like, WTF??? Did he not see how unpopular the Bush presidency has become and the worldwide financial crisis that came about as a result of their policies? Was he trying to lose the election on purpose?

Edited by MarqFJA on Aug 25th 2018 at 7:17:35 PM

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#253092: Aug 25th 2018 at 9:52:07 PM

[up]Mc Cain genuinely didn't think the Bush administration's policy was a failure. What seems obvious to a thinking person is going to look cryptic to a Republican.

Re: His death, I'm sorry his family had to go through that and brain cancer in general is a terrifying disease that no one deserves to be stricken by. That said, I'm not sorry he's gone. He spent thirty years staking out a false reputation as a moderate while dog whistling his way into the GOP elite. He brought Sarah Palin into national politics, coarsened our discourse, acted as a spokesman for idiotic wars, and on the domestic front did his part to make our economy wither for everyone, but the rich. We're better off without him, just as we're better off without any Republican currently in government.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Aug 25th 2018 at 12:56:34 PM

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#253093: Aug 25th 2018 at 9:54:19 PM

Obama would have won almost certainly no matter what but the problem with Mc Cain was he wasn't nearly as extreme enough for his party at that time.

A big issue in the Trump primaries.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#253094: Aug 25th 2018 at 9:59:38 PM

2008 was pre-Tea Party. The Republicans were vile, but the neocons were still the powerful faction, and Mc Cain was their standard bearer. The rest of the field wasn't that much more radical than he was. That came later, when it looked like Obama's presidency was intractable.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
NickTheSwing Since: Aug, 2009
#253095: Aug 25th 2018 at 11:01:24 PM

Obama is a truly great man. Better than most of us, certainly better than the likes of me - he devoted all that to his fallen foe.

I'm a coldhearted man, but I have to be astounded by these people. I just can't comprehend them - and that kind of makes me happy that this is so.

...I really think this is the end of an age. John Mc Cain was for all his faults decidedly not a chickenhawk, he was a spirited challenger, toward the end of his life he dedicated it all to screwing up the Trump Agenda on health care and such, and admittedly, while I'll never understand the reasoning behind it, I do appreciate the sheer comic relief gold he brought to us by introducing the world to Mrs. Sarah Palin.

...whose family seems to be disintegrating. Dammit, Palin, STAY FUNNY. I NEED YOU FUNNY.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#253096: Aug 25th 2018 at 11:06:37 PM

Palin was never funny.

Disgusted, but not surprised
NickTheSwing Since: Aug, 2009
#253097: Aug 25th 2018 at 11:21:30 PM

You keep telling yourself that, while I laugh at her neologisms and bizarre references. She's a one woman political slapstick routine whenever she shows up to talk - the only one who seems not to know is her!

I love it, and every late night tv show has a running list of amazing Palin jokes, though really as Tina Fay showed, you don't need to change much to make her fucking hilarious.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#253098: Aug 25th 2018 at 11:23:09 PM

Except this person is an elected official who nearly became our VP. I saw her as a warning sign.

Disgusted, but not surprised
NickTheSwing Since: Aug, 2009
#253099: Aug 25th 2018 at 11:29:21 PM

You farm families, and teachers, and teamsters, and cops, and cooks. You rockin’ rollers. And holy rollers! All of you who work so hard. You full-time moms. You with the hands that rock the cradle. You all make the world go round, and now our cause is one.

This is why I love her. Never go away Caribou Barbie.

Kakuzan Let memes die. Kill them, if you have to. from Knock knock, open up the door, it's real. Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Let memes die. Kill them, if you have to.
#253100: Aug 25th 2018 at 11:31:50 PM

[up] When you say she is funny, do you mean she herself is a joke? Because that quote isn't what I would call comedy gold.

Don't catch you slippin' now.

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