US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1136

On June 26 2014 12:10 Jormundr wrote:

The tears, the delicious tears. May I remind you that at the end of the day you make camp with a large group of professional institution-shitters?

Some conservatives aren't happy that their preferred candidate, state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) lost to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) in the runoff of the GOP primary for U.S. Senate in Mississippi. Many tea party types are openly speculating foul play and that Democrats and black voters were involved. Take Rush Limbaugh who wondered if Cochran's campaign slogan in Mississippi over the last few days was "Uncle Toms for Thad."

"I wonder what the campaign slogan was in Mississippi the past few days, 'Uncle Toms for Thad'? Because I thought it was the worst thing you could do as an African American, vote for a Republican. The worst thing you could do," Limbaugh said on Wednesday. "But somehow they were made to believe that voting for old Thad would be fine and dandy. And why? Because they were told Thad's done a lot for black people in Mississippi. Must be the first time they were told that."

Cochran's turnaround victory in the race on Tuesday was immediately met with criticism by McDaniel and tea partiers over his strategy of reaching out to not only Republicans but also Democrats and African-Americans, a move that dismayed tea partiers but isn't illegal under Mississippi's open primary laws.

When Cochran was named the winner, McDaniel himself openly questioned the results, and said "there is something a bit strange, there is something a bit unusual about a Republican primary that's decided by liberal Democrats."

"Before this race ends we have to be absolutely certain that the Republican primary was won by Republican voters," McDaniel also said.

On June 26 2014 12:05 xDaunt wrote:

Doesn't matter. Shitting all over the institution isn't going to fix it.

On June 26 2014 12:19 xDaunt wrote:

There is a big difference between causing obstruction within the confines of the law and outright breaking the law.

On June 26 2014 10:57 Nyxisto wrote:
If you don't want people to equalize foreign policy with war then maybe the US should do a little bit less of the latter, because 90% of Americas foreign policy in the last three decades was war.

On June 26 2014 16:03 Yoav wrote:


While I understand the comment you are responding too had an ad hominem (and a silly one at that), this is an absurd oversimplification/error in fact. Yes, the U.S. engaged in several military actions in the last 3 decades, including some very stupid ones. We also prevented a genocide in Kosovo and retook Kuwait from Iraq (in both cases with international allies, though we did the overwhelming majority of the heavy lifting).

And yes, drone strikes are stupid and obviously illegal and it is quite beyond me why the conversation about them is framed in terms of constitutional protections rather than "Holy shit, if China killed a guy in Canadian territory against the will of the government, we'd be mobilizing nukes; is this really a precedent we want to set?"

But U.S. foreign policy is a great deal more than "war," or even "military" (as the stabilizing presence of U.S. troops around the world is of enormous benefit to the international community, particularly in East Asia). But the U.S. conducts all sorts of "soft" diplomacy; hell, the most dominant things of the U.S. are culture and (to a lesser extent) economy. U.S. pressure is almost always (exceptions for *some* oil rich states) to the benefit of human rights and democracy.

I mean, the U.S. has its things, but its foreign policy is nowhere near "90%" dominated by war.

On June 26 2014 13:09 oneofthem wrote:
if it's illegal get it enforced.

On June 27 2014 00:42 oneofthem wrote:
well when you have power you'd like to use it. proper procedural reform isn't coming any time soon. so i guess if we do become some sort of ideological dictatorship historians would look back on this period and single out this push and tug.

liberals would just want rightwingers to admit that they started it first. it doesn't matter who started it yesterday, but today you pushed me, and there's no teacher to stop it.

On June 27 2014 00:54 xDaunt wrote:

And where exactly have conservatives acted in imperial fashion with regards to national domestic policy?

On June 27 2014 00:54 xDaunt wrote:

And where exactly have conservatives acted in imperial fashion with regards to national domestic policy?

On June 27 2014 00:54 xDaunt wrote:

And where exactly have conservatives acted in imperial fashion with regards to national domestic policy?

On June 27 2014 01:03 oneofthem wrote:

imperial fashion isn't the wrong. the standard is doing the job of running the government's critical functions, which were repeatedly taken hostage. let's not go over this again.

somewhere in spacetime some freedom fighters are probably lecturing about the importance of exploiting the opposition's decency and i guess that's what the republicans have learned. alas decency only lasts so long.

On June 27 2014 01:00 Mercy13 wrote:


Gay marriage bans, which violate the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause, and are therefore illegal : )

On June 27 2014 01:26 xDaunt wrote:

Yes, it most certainly is. Bitch all you want about conservative "obstruction," but there is nothing about it that falls outside the confines of the law. And there certainly aren't any arguments coming from the Tea Party that an executive or other politician should be making decisions and policy outside the confines of the legislative process. Liberals and democrats, however, have far fewer qualms about overstepping the bounds of the law. Hell, your posts -- among those of others in thread -- repeatedly justify acting outside of the law to effect domestic policy.