Mitch McConnell quitting as Minority Leader

[NATI BENGALS]

(03-02-2024, 08:21 AM)pally Wrote: Angela Chao, McConnell’s sister-in-law and billionaire CEO of the Chao family shipping business, died several weeks ago in an automobile accident.  He noted that her death was a big factor in his retirement as leader.  Yesterday it was announced that her death is being investigated as a murder. Was someone sending Mitch a message?

Happy to get rid of Mitch and the wealthy well connected Chinese family sleeping right next to the senate republican leader.


Definitely sounds like some shady shit happened to his family.

https://www.ktvq.com/death-of-mitch-mcconnell-s-sister-in-law-being-investigated

"Chao, 50, died in February in a crash on private property in Blanco County, Texas. 
CNBC reports that the Blanco County Sheriff's Office wrote a letter to the Texas attorney general saying, "This incident was not a typical accident.""

[hollodero]

(03-05-2024, 12:58 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote: And voters are stupid and lazy.  Did you have a point you were trying to make?

Congress has had like a 10% approval rating for about 2 decades.  Of course, it's never the reps that one votes for who are the problem.  Yet it's fascinating how many incumbents continue to win re-election despite an overall body approval of 10%.  

It's almost as if an electorate is kept intentionally ignorant so as to keep re-electing the career politicians who only care about themselves.  No, wait, that all kind of does actually make sense.

Well, it's that and also the fact that you get exactly two options to choose from and most people have learned to despise the other side. What is a conservative person supposed to do when their republican senator gets too old? Vote for the liberal leftie?

[*pally*]

(03-05-2024, 03:38 AM)hollodero Wrote: Well, it's that and also the fact that you get exactly two options to choose from and most people have learned to despise the other side. What is a conservative person supposed to do when their republican senator gets too old? Vote for the liberal leftie?

yep!!

[SunsetBengal]

(03-05-2024, 03:38 AM)hollodero Wrote: Well, it's that and also the fact that you get exactly two options to choose from and most people have learned to despise the other side. What is a conservative person supposed to do when their republican senator gets too old? Vote for the liberal leftie?

It boils down to campaign finances.  Once an elected official gets in and makes a few connected happy by voting for their particular policy choices, the campaign donation start flowing in like a tsunami, leaving any potential primary challengers with the slimmest of chances of getting seen/heard/known, no matter how sound their character or potential solutions may be.

Some of this can be solved by defrocking the RNC and DNC, and relieving them of having the power of naming the nominees for General Elections.

[*pally*]

Jungle primaries such as those in California, open primaries, and ranked-choice voting all can lessen the power of incumbency as it removes the strength of the extreme partisan voters who dominate the electorate in closed primary elections

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(03-05-2024, 01:06 PM)pally Wrote: Jungle primaries such as those in California, open primaries, and ranked-choice voting all can lessen the power of incumbency as it removes the strength of the extreme partisan voters who dominate the electorate in closed primary elections

All the primary in CA does is allow the Dems to expand on their monopoly on state politics, to everyone's extreme detriment.  Any time a single party becomes too entrenched in a state bad things happen.  You no longer have to appease a reasonable middle, you have to out extreme each other.

[*pally*]

(03-05-2024, 01:12 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: All the primary in CA does is allow the Dems to expand on their monopoly on state politics, to everyone's extreme detriment.  Any time a single party becomes too entrenched in a state bad things happen.  You no longer have to appease a reasonable middle, you have to out extreme each other.

I totally agree that single-party rule at any level is seriously detrimental to a functioning democracy.

You live in a state where there are twice as many registered Democrats as there are registered Republicans.  At a statewide level that can be hard to overcome. Other states have the opposite problem  But the state has elected Republican governors in the past.  Fiing the gerrymandering issue can help in district races but doesn't change the shear number issue at a state-wide level.

Now, I realize Republicans hate Adam Schiff, one of the 2 presumed general election candidates if polling holds true, but politically speaking he is the least liberal of the Democrats running for the Senate.  Whether or not Steve Garvey can make the final 2 is up to the voters.  Stunt candidates don't always do well.  Trump did but Dr Oz, Hersel Walker, etc didn't.  But California does have a long history of voting for celebrity over ideas 

[hollodero]

(03-05-2024, 10:49 AM)pally Wrote: yep!!

yeah, well, sure, that's what I would do anyway. But it sure goes both ways. Would you ever, recognizing that the democrat's candidate is too old, dumb, ethically dubious or whatever, even consider voting for the MAGA candidate instead? I mean, not an American, but I probably wouldn't.

[hollodero]

(03-05-2024, 12:39 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: It boils down to campaign finances.  Once an elected official gets in and makes a few connected happy by voting for their particular policy choices, the campaign donation start flowing in like a tsunami, leaving any potential primary challengers with the slimmest of chances of getting seen/heard/known, no matter how sound their character or potential solutions may be.

yep.

(03-05-2024, 12:39 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Some of this can be solved by defrocking the RNC and DNC, and relieving them of having the power of naming the nominees for General Elections.

Welp, I don't really know. I often feel RNC and DNC are the scapegoats for everything that's wrong in politics, but imho their existence as is rather is a symptom than the cause.
You have two parties resulting in effectively no alternatives for most people. McConnell could do what ever he wants and still would have gotten elected anyways in that solidly red state of his. Same goes for most senators red and blue really, aside from a very few contested areas. Imho, that is the root of the problem. But Americans don't see it that way and I have accepted that.

Sure, one could make the primaries more fair, but as long as brib... campaign donations are perfectly legal that will never happen. And that's the one solid bipartisan issue, that the donations ain't stopping. And most people are so engaged in being for one side and hating the other that they do not mind. Most people even celebrate when their candidate raised more money than the opponent. They actually celebrate that, my gosh. Hooray, we have the bigger sellout! Now what, the same person gets elected and then surprisingly turns out to be a sellout? Also, there's cars at the end of a car assembly line? Weird world.

[*pally*]

(03-05-2024, 04:18 PM)hollodero Wrote: yeah, well, sure, that's what I would do anyway. But it sure goes both ways. Would you ever, recognizing that the democrat's candidate is too old, dumb, ethically dubious or whatever, even consider voting for the MAGA candidate instead? I mean, not an American, but I probably wouldn't.

I could never and would never vote for a MAGA candidate.  I would vote for old.  I might even vote for dumb unless there is some other disqualifier.  Actually having evidene of a ethically dubious person would be a game breaker for me.  In that case, I would likely not vote for either candidate

[hollodero]

(03-05-2024, 05:13 PM)pally Wrote: I could never and would never vote for a MAGA candidate.  I would vote for old.  I might even vote for dumb unless there is some other disqualifier.  Actually having evidene of a ethically dubious person would be a game breaker for me.  In that case, I would likely not vote for either candidate

Fair enough, but imho that's the issue. As soon as I understand this position, which I do for I would feel the same way probably, I kinda have to understand the reverse position too, that someone with a staunch conservative worldview would handle it in the same manner and never vote for the team blue person.

One could of course claim that liberal is objectively better, but I find it too tough to declare that a fact. 

[*pally*]

(03-05-2024, 05:19 PM)hollodero Wrote: Fair enough, but imho that's the issue. As soon as I understand this position, which I do for I would feel the same way probably, I kinda have to understand the reverse position too, that someone with a staunch conservative worldview would handle it in the same manner and never vote for the team blue person.

One could of course claim that liberal is objectively better, but I find it too tough to declare that a fact. 

That is not to say I would never vote for a conservative.  I have, for my township Trustee position.  But, IMO, MAGA politicians are either lying to everyone about what they believe just to pander to the MAGA crowd or radicalized to the point they are dangerous to the America I want to live in.  

[*michaelsean*]

Dude was majority/minority leader for how long and he couldn’t replace a bridge in his state that is considered one of the worst in the country?

[*pally*]

(03-05-2024, 01:12 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: All the primary in CA does is allow the Dems to expand on their monopoly on state politics, to everyone's extreme detriment.  Any time a single party becomes too entrenched in a state bad things happen.  You no longer have to appease a reasonable middle, you have to out extreme each other.

Well I guess based on the primary results in California, we can congratulate likely Senator Adam Schiff

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(03-06-2024, 02:49 AM)pally Wrote: Well I guess based on the primary results in California, we can congratulate likely Senator Adam Schiff

Steve Garvey is polling surprisingly well, and may even beat Schiff in the primary.  Of course, he has no shot in the general, because we can't vote for someone with an R next to his name.  Ick.

Mostly good news for me in that human garbage Gascon is only polling an anemic 21%, which means, barring some shenanigans, he's toast.  Sadly, my preferred candidate Hatami, is currently in third and thus unlikely to make the runoff.  Still as long as Gascon is put out to pasture I'm happy.

[GMDino]

Mitch kisses the ring and endorses Former President of the US Donald J Trump.

Reporter to McConnell: How do you reconcile your Trump endorsement with the fact you called him practically responsible for January 6th and that he insulted you and your wife repeatedly? pic.twitter.com/47Il1SaxkP

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 6, 2024

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


However, Mr. Trump does not realize, or fogot, that Mitch is retiring.

[*pally*]

this has nothing to do with his statement. I fully expected him to endorse Trump....

but Mitch does not look well. He's never looked really healthy but he looks like he is beginning to waste away

[GMDino]

(03-06-2024, 09:18 PM)pally Wrote: this has nothing to do with his statement.  I fully expected him to endorse Trump....

but Mitch does not look well.  He's never looked really healthy but he looks like he is beginning to waste away

He's been in some kind of poor health since the black and blue marks on his hands.  Then he had a fall and the "events" when he would stop talking.

I wonder if anyone ever questioned HIS wife and family about why they were forcing an "obviously" deteriorating man to stay in office? 

[NATI BENGALS]

(03-05-2024, 03:11 AM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: Happy to get rid of Mitch and the wealthy well connected Chinese family sleeping right next to the senate republican leader.


Definitely sounds like some shady shit happened to his family.

https://www.ktvq.com/death-of-mitch-mcconnell-s-sister-in-law-being-investigated

"Chao, 50, died in February in a crash on private property in Blanco County, Texas. 
CNBC reports that the Blanco County Sheriff's Office wrote a letter to the Texas attorney general saying, "This incident was not a typical accident.""

https://www.yahoo.com/news/angela-chao-mitch-mcconnell-sister-230107768.html

Solves that mystery. Drunk and drove into the pond. People around. She got on the phone for awhile… other person got on the phone
with 911 for awhile. Someone took a kayak out onto the pond. All while her car was filling with water and she was drowning. wtf