POLITICAL JUNKIES

Meow13

Honestly, how can the Monica Lewinsky scandal have anything to do with Hillary. Who are we to say how Hillary should have dealt with it. I feel for both Hillary and Chelsea.

Meow13

Playing the woman card, are you f-ing serious. I'd like to tell the trumpster what he can do with that card. A-HOLE

ChiSandy

To conservatives and libertarians, "political correctness" is their term for restraints on being bigoted and inconsiderate. They actually DO want to be able to insult those of different cultures and abilities without being judged.They want the freedom to hurt others' feelings without consequence. In other words, they want their decades and centuries of hegemony to continue unabated.

april485

wow, took a few days off from the threads (am on vacation) and missed over 100 comments! Will catch up later but suffice to say my state CT was a nailbiter for a little while. They had Bernie ahead early but the SW corner went big for HRC so she won in the end. I voted absentee since I knew I would not be home.

Keep up the great banter. Just glancing through, I saw some wonderful stuff! You are all so smart!!!!

Right now I am going to "play the woman card" and have DH take me out for breakfast today. We are in a timeshare so I have been cooking it every day so far...not today.

ruthbru

The political correctness I am tired of (from both sides) is the promising 'pie in the sky' and the demonizing of the opponents. What we need more of is Churchill's "I have nothing to offer you but blood, sweat, and tears" and Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country".

nihahi

suersis, if you are still reading the thread, PLEASE expand your comments, as to what your points of discussion are. I have to say I was baffled by this thread being called "bland".....and apologies to you, but I REALLY don't understand the comparison to Congress????

DivineMrsM

Unfortunately, the Monica Lewinsky scandal overshadows so much of anything right that Bill Clinton ever did. He has to live with that. The way I understood it was that the main point abut the ML affair was about proving whether Bill tried to get others to lie about the "inappropriate relationship" he had with her that was the issue, and not so much the relationship itself.

A recent book I read made note of the fact that at the end of Bill Clinton's administration, there was a sense of failed missions, the missed opportunities to make a difference in so many areas because Bill's addiction, womanizing, whatever you want to call it, took center stage. In hindsight, does Bill hope to right things as First Dude should HRC become president? Possibly. He is another one saying "woulda, shoulda, coulda". Do people have a right to not want him back in the White House in any capacity? Sure, if they feel that strongly about him. But I'm not voting for him, I'm voting for Hillary.

It gets skewed. When Obama was running for president, Bill Clinton came to our area to campaign for him. Facebook lit up with so many people in the area thrilled that "President Clinton" was coming here! But he wasn't president. He's a former president. No, everyone kept referring to him as a President Clinton. But I really think his visit made some people think they were voting for him, not Obama. Like I said, it gets very skewed what thoughts are in people's minds when they go to vote.

IllinoisLady

I'm going to keep reading here. I NEED to listen to the intelligence I find here. I've said it many times so hate bringing it up but truth is truth. I had a big thyroid blow-out and had transitory amnesia, then again with a stroke, and then a bit more ( much lighter this time ) with chemo. Honestly, it is not what I say or sometimes think ---- it is those who so easily it seems can articulate what I've felt for so long.

So, if anyone has wondered why I don't say too much, this is it. I can recognize so much truth. I am no longer equipped well to cogently express it so therefore need what I am able to hear from this thread. I don't go along with all of it, but enough that I'd not be likely to argue too much.

As for the rest, "deal me in".

Jackie

ETA: I needed to correct a spelling error.

ruthbru

Here is a good explanation from the Los Angeles Times:

After years of raging against President Obama, unhappy conservatives have a new target for their anger and disgust: the Republicans in Congress.

The GOP seized control of the House in 2010 and four years later took theSenate. Yet even with those majorities, Republican lawmakers have failed to achieve such conservative priorities as rolling back Obamacare, their derisive name for the national healthcare law, or cracking down harder on illegal immigration.

The controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline is no closer to being built – indeed, it may soon be dead – tough antiabortion legislation has languished in the Senate, and a fiercely disputed nuclear deal with Iran seems virtually certain to take effect, despite near-unanimous opposition from Republicans in Congress.

In short, as many see it, the promise of the 2010 tea party movement and its 2014 echo have been dashed on the marble steps of the Capitol.

"People feel betrayed," said Greg Mueller, a longtime conservative activist and campaign strategist. "They feel like they keep working and fighting to elect Republicans to get us back to a limited government approach to life, and all they get is more spending, more taxes and people who are afraid to fight liberal Democrats."

A big beneficiary of that frustration has been Donald Trump.

One of the curiosities of the 2016 presidential campaign has been the way the blunt-spoken billionaire surged to the top of Republican polls despite his relatively short party residence and history of statements —favoring higher taxes on the well-to-do, endorsing government-run healthcare, backing certain gun controls — at odds with so much of the party's prevailing orthodoxy.

Trump has trimmed some of his positions and reversed others — he now opposes legal abortion, for instance — as he seeks the GOP nomination, a process he likens to Ronald Reagan's evolution from New Deal Democrat to conservative icon (a comparison that glosses over the length and depth of Reagan's conversion).

But Trump's appeal is not so much about issues as attitude.

The reason for his success is simple, observers say: Trump is giving unsparing voice to the contempt many conservatives feel toward the political leadership in Washington, Democrat and Republican alike. The scorn runs so deep, it overrides whatever differences voters may have with Trump over his garish lifestyle, his patchwork philosophy or past stances on particular issues.

"They don't see any difference between Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner, or Harry Reid andMitch McConnell," said Sal Russo, a longtime GOP strategist, referring to the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate.

"People are just sick and tired of politics as usual, where nothing ever changes," said Russo, who helped engineer the rise of the tea party protest movement. "Anybody who helps them vent their frustration at the system is an appealing candidate."

It's not just Trump.

Collectively, the three candidates with zero experience in elective office — real estate magnate Trump, neurosurgeon Ben Carson and businesswoman Carly Fiorina — account for roughly half the support in surveys of Republican primary voters.

The candidate who most embodies the GOP establishment, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, lags far behind, trailing both Trump and Carson, in third place or worse, depending on the poll. If anything, his dynastic name and inherited support from his father and brother, the past Presidents Bush, has worked to his detriment.

Establishment Republicans "keep asking us to elect them," said Mueller, who worked for past insurgent presidential hopefuls Patrick J. Buchanan and Steve Forbes and now advises a pro-Fiorina political action committee. "The question is a big fat 'for what'?"

Mindful of that sneering sentiment, others in the GOP field are also assailing the party's leadership.

Freshman Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is essentially running as an outsider from within, excoriating "the Washington cartel" and even calling McConnell a liar during a July debate on the Senate floor. The attack, a serious breach of protocol, drew a stern rebuke from Cruz's Senate colleagues but was cheered by admirers, including conservative radio titan Rush Limbaugh.

"Finally," he said, "Cruz vents the frustration that every Republican voter has felt with Congress since 2010."

Cruz joined forces with Trump on Wednesday at a Capitol Hill rally opposing the nuclear deal with Iran.

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a onetime GOP front-runner who has fallen far back in the large pack as Trump continues to lead in polls, has adopted some of the real estate tycoon's pointed anti-Washington rhetoric.

Calling in to Glenn Beck's radio program, Walker assailed McConnell and other party leaders for a lack of accomplishments and insufficient vigor attacking Obama.

"I hear it all the time, and I share that sentiment," Walker said. "We were told if Republicans got the majority in the United States Senate, there would be a bill on the president's desk to repeal Obamacare. It is August. Where is that bill? Where was that vote?"

Republicans in the House have voted more than 50 times without success to eliminate all or part of the law, but McConnell has not found a way around Democrats' ability to filibuster in the Senate.

There is, of course, a huge distance between the facile statements of the campaign trail and the way government works.

David Winston, a political advisor to the GOP leadership in Congress, noted that, dispiriting though it may be for Republicans, there is only so much they can achieve lacking a filibuster-proof Senate majority and a president of their own party.

He offered a glass-half-full defense of the Republican majority — "What would have happened if Pelosi had been speaker?" — and suggested that at a certain point the GOP's many would-be presidents would "have to stop pointing fingers and show the solutions they have ... and their endgame and the strategy for how those become law."

Meantime, a recent Des Moines Register-Bloomberg Politics poll found 91% of Republicans surveyed in Iowa, the first state to vote in 2016, were either "unsatisfied" or "mad as hell" with the political status quo. (The figure was 82% among Democrats.)

More specifically, three-quarters of likely GOP caucus-goers expressed frustration with the Republicans in charge of Congress.

That's not likely to change anytime soon.

DivineMrsM

There's a little bit of a debate as to what a former president of the U.S. should be called and it also depends whether you are speaking directly to him or about him.

Here's Emily Post's take on it:

I'm unhappy when I hear former Presidents and other ex-officials addressed as "Mister." Doesn't this belittle their importance? I was taught to address someone with the highest title or position they've reached in their career.

When addressing a former President of the United States in a formal setting, the correct form is "Mr. LastName." ("President LastName" or "Mr. President" are terms reserved for the current head of state.) This is true for other ex-officials, as well.

When talking about the person to a third party, on the other hand, it's appropriate to say, "former President LastName." This holds for introductions, as well: A current state governor is introduced as "Governor Tom Smith," while you'd introduce an ex-governor as "former Governor Jim Bell."

Now, let's look a little closer. In an informal setting (such as a private lunch), it's acceptable to use the title the ex-official held. Here, you could refer to former President Jimmy Carter as either "President Carter" or "Mr. Carter."

Finally, if the person you're lunching with held more than one previous position—say, judge and ambassador—you'll want to know which title he or she prefers.

Moderators

Folks, we've decided to lock this discussion. We understand that thus far this conversation has been mostly civil, however, given the controversial political year, we'd like to instead return our focus to Breastcancer.org's true mission, and that is to help support those dealing with breast cancer. We feel that political discussions do nothing but overshadow this mission and do a disservice to those members who need support, knowledge, advice, and information about breast cancer. Keeping that in mind, we as the Mods do not think it's fair to other members looking for help, that we can not spend the time helping those members while we are trying to maintain this thread stays civil and respectful.

We thank you in advance for your understanding, and hope you can continue to help your fellow sisters and brothers dealing with breast cancer and its effects.

The Mods