"On Sept. 29, Dianne Feinstein, 90, died of natural causes. She had cast a vote in the Senate less than a day prior."
Banger first two sentences. As an observer not from the US, this feels like Emperors New Clothes to me. But instead of a naked emperor, you have paraded a corpse through the senate and acted as if she was a fighter like Xena, Warrior Princess or something.
As a Californian, I’ll say its been feeling damn near “Weekend and Bernie’s” for months now.
I dunno who was actually casting her votes, but I doubt they were aligned with what the people of my state would have wanted.
We need to stop allowing folks to remain in power after the age of like 65.
I am in favour of both age and term limits for politicians. For one, if regular people are supposed to retire at 65ish and realistically often struggle to find work once they go past their 40s, there is no reason why politicians should be allowed to stay in their jobs through their 70s and sometimes 80s.
And I am in favour of term limits because it would keep the career politicians out of the game. Very few of them are any good.
Politicians who know that their political career is about to end have the nasty habit of doing favors for their big corporation of choice, knowing that they'll receive a cushy board position in return afterwards.
If you want to establish term limits, you also need to establish some sort of accountability for the time afterwards.
I agree that we need younger people in these positions. We need those more in touch with what the average person is going through these days.
However, I disagree that we should set a hard age limit. If anything have them take some sort of cognitive exam every few years once they hit a certain age.
You need an impartial hard limit. Otherwise you get people like trump getting doctors to lie about their health. Sorry if you’re in good health and get the boot, but you knew what the limits were when you signed on.
Makes sense. Perhaps it could be something variable based on the average lifespan of the people in the country... it might even give them a little incentive to come up with a working healthcare system if it means they get to stay in office a little longer.
That’s a good idea. But cynical me says people in power like to keep that power, and they’d manipulate and restrict what data they used to calculate that average as it applies to their tenure.
A cognitive exam would be a good idea regardless of any age. They need to be fit to serve.
Natural causes my ass. Cunt had dementia and they kept her around for power ever one of her votes for the last 3 years should be invalidated.
for power ever one of her votes for the last 3 years should be invalidated.
I think you missed one letter and a dot there.
Are we at stage "invalidating votes of senile old coots" yet? Have you SEEN how many crusty bastards are in there? I'd say the Dems would LOVE this as the demographic helps them immensely.
It's been bizarre watching everyone claim she's a senile old bat who should've stepped down decades ago, to hearing everyone praise how devoted she was. It's been a very disappointing journey for sure, the stuff of "boring dystopia" posts.
Memorials would not be very pleasant if we only remembered people as they were in their final days
Memorials would be very uncomfortable if people told the truth instead of pufffing eachother up with hot hair and bullshit.
We are gathered here today to remember all the ways grandma was kind of a bitch
I think being a public figure that put her position ahead of the needs of the public she supposedly served gives her an exemption from the "peaceful words for the dead rule"
Lest we forget she was a consummate centrist.
We should remember her for her actions through her career as a politician. Where she stood on equality, lgbtq+ rights, the death penalty, government surveillance... How she used her position in the Senate to enrich herself through means not allowed by commoners.
There are a lot of shit bags in government. And one less doesn't change that. But let's not paint her as a champion of anything but herself just because she's dead.
This sounds like some Ruth Bader Ginsberg shit.
You can't criticize someone now that they're dead despite wanting to cling to power over pride and legacy!
Yes, yes we can. And anyone who enabled that shit should take a good hard look into themselves and get the fuck out of politics.
We have age minimums because the mind has not finished developing and we should also have age maximums based on the average age cognitive decline sets in.
Until we are able to properly identify outliers it's probably best to stick with the subset of the population with the highest probability of meeting the minimum qualifications for the position.
Final? She was always a shithead.
Been a lot of whitewashing lately of people like Feinstein, Biden and Pelosi. And it seems like you can't even criticize them or you get called a Trumper.
Biden is not even in the same league of asshattery as Pelosi and Feinstein, despite a long career and being in the Executive twice. I’ll never forget Pelosi talking down to a high school student who asked her a question about economic equity—I don’t remember the kid’s question, but her response is seared into my brain. She got pissy and said “America is a capitalist country” like capitalism was handed down from god on high or enshrined in the Constitution. It was contemptuously delivered, to a degree as bad as I once heard Rick Santorum speak to a student who asked him about LGBTQ rights.
Feinstein was a regressive in a lot of ways, perhaps she escaped being labeled a DINO because her votes were more important than her sometimes asinine rhetoric.
I’ll never forget Pelosi talking down to a high school student who asked her a question about economic equity—I don’t remember the kid’s question, but her response is seared into my brain. She got pissy and said “America is a capitalist country” like capitalism was handed down from god on high or enshrined in the Constitution.
Here's the clip: https://youtu.be/MR65ZhO6LGA
Ah, thanks... the questioner wasn't a high school student, but appears to be in their 20s. Pelosi's response is less flagrantly contemptuous than I remember, but revealed her to be a dyed-in-the-wool corporatist, which was equally upsetting and has colored my perception of her ever since. Feinstein basically wanted to publicly flay Snowden and took such an extreme view of state secrets (among other things), and I was always curious about the politics that led her to get reelected term after term.
You'll find, historically, Dems question themselves a lot more on average. As "Dems need to fall in love" with the party plan, they end up asking way more questions than the "GoPniks need to fall in line" bunch.
So, you may easily decide that you DON'T get called a trumper just by asking questions. It's in the nature to review and discuss things.
Being called a Trumper for criticising a democrat is no different than Christians who say you're a devil worshiper if you don't worship the Christian god. Just because I criticize a democrat, doesn't mean I'm a republican. It's not a knife edge. Someone like Pelosi is not anywhere near leftist enough for me, but if I criticize her for that, I'm somehow a Trump supporter?? How does that make sense?
Do you really get push back on that? Most of the Democrats are corrupt. I think Biden is relatively cut and dry but Pelosi is a crook.
And it seems like you can't even criticize them or you get called a Trumper
/cue dramatic music
Dems agree that it was stupid??
My only reaction is something along the lines of finally being able to breathe a breath of slightly fresher air. She has been higher up on my list of Senators to remove than my own state's crooks.
I'm sure all of opinions mean as much to this thread as they do to a dead body.
I might agree with the sentiment, but Hearst can eat a bag.
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