United States Senate

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Cartmann99]

6 hours ago, thoughtful said:

Shouldn't that turkey be holding a gun?

 

 

[Alisamer]

On 11/20/2020 at 9:17 PM, front hugs > duggs said:

I get Romney does more than I think any other Republican senator in terms of speaking up against Trump and other Republicans. I still don't think it's enough, to be honest. Confirming the SCOTUS picks, only voting against one article of impeachment, it's like he's doing the least amount possible to manage to appear human.

Yet the Q people believe that it's the Democrats who are the satanic lizard people.

I think they need to lay off the kool-aid and take a closer look at McConnell. If there's a reptile in a human skin suit anywhere in Washington, it's him.

17 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

What an ass. People in miles-long lines for food banks, inmates being recruited  to help stack bodies 4-high in refrigerated trucks because the morgues are overflowing, and he posts this.

[AmazonGrace]

Don't look now but a Republican found his spine.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Well this senator found his spine after the transition had already been okayed and it no longer meant anything. .

 

[Cartmann99]

If someone put Ted Cruz out on the curb with a "free" sign around his neck, would anybody take him home?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

A great op-ed: "Marco Rubio is already suiting up for the politics of destruction"

Quote

Let’s say you’re a Republican senator who claims to support democracy and U.S. leadership in the world.

Let’s imagine, too, that you’ve spent four years excusing and supporting a president who fawned over North Korea’s odious dictator, encouraged China’s ruling tyrant to build his concentration camps, took the word of Russia’s strongman over U.S. intelligence agencies and celebrated the Saudi despot who orchestrated the dismemberment of a dissident journalist.

And let’s posit that, on top of all that, you’ve been a profile in cowardice as your president tried to nullify a democratic election here at home.

Now the president-elect appoints a team of seasoned, moderate foreign policy experts who support democracy and American leadership in the world.

How do you respond?

Like this, maybe? “I’m sure I will have my differences with President-elect Joe Biden and his team over the coming years. But we share many fundamental principles. His nominees are beyond well-qualified.

“For the good of our country, I wish them every success.”

In our dreams.

Here is the way Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) actually greeted the new team: “Biden’s cabinet picks went to Ivy League schools, have strong resumes, attend all the right conferences & will be polite & orderly caretakers of America’s decline.”

I suppose this sour, graceless tweet shouldn’t surprise us. It shouldn’t surprise us to see Rubio, along with Tom Cotton (Ark.), Josh Hawley (Mo.) and other Republican senators, disparaging the incoming Biden team. They are now in the opposition, after all. In an ideal world, constructive criticism from the opposition might help keep an administration sharp and focused. In a USA Today op-ed following the tweet, Rubio said his main concern is the new team will be too soft on China.

But there is something particularly galling about this instant pivot to attack mode from senators who couldn’t even bring themselves to acknowledge the results of the election — who have stood by or cheered as President Trump has attempted to overturn those results.

Rubio obviously knows that Trump lost clearly and convincingly, in the electoral college as well as the popular vote. Rubio has been silent as the president claims, with no basis, that the election was stolen. He applauded as Trump attempted to make that case in court, where his lawyers were turned away again and again because they had no evidence.

And when Trump then pressed state and local officials — the secretary of state in Georgia, legislators in Pennsylvania, the Board of State Canvassers in Michigan — to nullify the results, Rubio offered no objection.

If Trump’s coup attempt has failed, it is because his defeat was so decisive — and because those state and local officials had the integrity and courage to resist Trump’s pressure.

But here’s the essential point: Almost no Republicans on the national stage had the integrity or courage to offer backup for these local officials. Almost none of them gave the public any reason to hope that if Trump’s effort to steal the election state by state had gained traction, they would have stood against it.

It wouldn’t have been difficult. Rubio only had to say, “My fellow Americans, this election was not rigged or stolen. There was no communist conspiracy to alter the results. We should be proud that, in the face of a pandemic, we turned out to vote in record numbers, and our votes were counted conscientiously and honestly by thousands of fair-minded Americans across the country.”

Instead, he followed the standard evasive Republican script, legitimizing Trump’s conspiracy theories without parroting them word for word. “Democrats have contested & gone to court after many elections,” he tweeted. “Like any candidate, President Trump is well within his legal rights to request recounts, contest unlawful votes and if he has clear evidence of widespread misconduct or irregularities take them to court.”

After such a near-miss of a constitutional crisis, you might hope Rubio would opt for a few days of quiet self-reflection — or at least abashed silence.

You might hope that he would reach out with an offer of cooperation to Secretary of State-designate Antony Blinken — a man with a long record of bipartisanship and commitment to human rights and free speech, values Rubio claims to champion.

You might hope Rubio would at least wait until the current president had the decency to concede before pronouncing the next one a failure.

But no. Rubio is already suiting up for the politics of destruction, already certain that this new team will preside over America’s decline.

It’s enough to make you despair that he may be right, though not for the reasons he would have us believe.

 

[47of74]

Kelly had this tweet up today...

She’s getting ratioed pretty good now. 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[Cartmann99]

From the Warnock vs Loeffler debate:

Senator Perdue didn't want to debate Ossoff, so...

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[thoughtful]

Loeffler is . . . well, let's just say I thought Stepford was in Connecticut, not Georgia.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[thoughtful]

David Perdue unmasked!

Or, if you prefer:

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

This is Loeffler's house. 

[Cartmann99]

The Texas GOP is sending Allen West to pump up the insanity in Georgia:

[K'Z'K]

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

This is one of Loeffler's houses. 

FTFY.

She has, like, five. This article mentions one in Atlanta (the one in AmazonGrace's post), one in LA, more than one in Florida, and a condo in Chicago. I've also found a reference to another one in Georgia, and there's got to be a New York condo. And of course there's a private jet.

You know, ordinary working-class farm girl stuff.

[AmazonGrace]

I can't begin to tell you how crazy and banana republic this seems to me. 

I mean, elections are a nice tradition but if voters vote wrong they should be just disregarded.

 What does Ted Cruz think this would lead to? The stupid  people of PA would never notice that they were disenfranchised?

[AmazonGrace]

How is this allowed?

 

[AmazonGrace]

She's 87 and it might be about time to retire. 

[church_of_dog]

37 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

She's 87 and it might be about time to retire. 

This is so interesting, on a broader level than just her.

My mom is 86 and has dementia, and I've watched it progress as the years pass.  She's only been diagnosed for a few years, but now that I see how it plays out, I can look back a full ten years and see slightly or moderately  unusual behavior that must have been the first manifestations, although neither she nor I knew it was anything back then.

At the same time, I've paid more attention to politics over the past decade and I have wondered about all the over-80 folks still in office, and figured that statistically, some of them must be working their way toward significant cognitive issues, as we've seen dementia increase in frequency across the US population in recent decades.

We might end up with some new procedural rules to deal with this issue in elected officials over the next decade or so, especially when rapidly progressing cognitive issues become apparent with a long wait before the next election.

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, church_of_dog said:

This is so interesting, on a broader level than just her.

My mom is 86 and has dementia, and I've watched it progress as the years pass.  She's only been diagnosed for a few years, but now that I see how it plays out, I can look back a full ten years and see slightly or moderately  unusual behavior that must have been the first manifestations, although neither she nor I knew it was anything back then.

At the same time, I've paid more attention to politics over the past decade and I have wondered about all the over-80 folks still in office, and figured that statistically, some of them must be working their way toward significant cognitive issues, as we've seen dementia increase in frequency across the US population in recent decades.

We might end up with some new procedural rules to deal with this issue in elected officials over the next decade or so, especially when rapidly progressing cognitive issues become apparent with a long wait before the next election.

It is for this reason that I believe in term and age limits. I realize I’m generalizing, and not all octogenarians have cognitive issues, but there simply comes a time that the older generation should retire and leave the stage for the next generations. By staying in office until death, politics are deprived of the input of a lot of younger generations. I firmly believe that, just as Congress should be a reflection of society in regards to ethnicity and gender, it should also be a reflection of all societal generations. 
Young as well as old, and all ages in between should be represented. 
Right now, Congress disproportionately represents the oldest generations. And whatever their cognitive status is, that is just wrong.

Edited December 10, 2020 by fraurosena
Tenses got mixed up

[church_of_dog]

7 hours ago, fraurosena said:

It is for this reason that I believe in term and age limits. I realize I’m generalizing, and not all octogenarians have cognitive issues, but there simply comes a time that the older generation should retire and leave the stage for the next generations. By staying in office until death, politics are deprived of the input of a lot of younger generations. I firmly believe that, just as Congress should be a reflection of society in regards to ethnicity and gender, it should also be a reflection of all societal generations. 
Young as well as old, and all ages in between should be represented. 
Right now, Congress disproportionately represents the oldest generations. And whatever their cognitive status is, that is just wrong.

I agree.  Just like on the youth end of the scale, where some individuals are mature enough to vote earlier than the official age, but must wait until they cross that line.

And of course older folks who are still cognitively functional can always participate as consultants, emeritus positions, special emmisaries to events, etc.  Anything that doesn't have a lengthy time connection so that both they and the authority that requested them can reassess at any time.  See:  Jimmy Carter among others.

But even if we do that, there is still the specific issue of the "epidemic" of dementia, which can sometimes arrive even in a person's 40s or 50s, well before our presumed cutoff age.  I guess I'm saying we need something comparable to section 4 of the 25th amendment to the US Constitution, but for legislators (and judges).  There may in fact be such laws in place, that I'm just unaware of.  If so, it sounds like it's time to apply them for Ms. Feinstein.

I also agree with your perspective that, overall, the leadership should be representative of the population, while still retaining the maturity and organizational memory needed to be effective.

Edited December 10, 2020 by church_of_dog