US POLITICS: AMERICANS, PLEASE WELCOME YOUR NEW PRESIDENT... SCOTT BROWN!

yeah i need to read more basically. more than blogs anyway, heyo

oh saxby, my saxby

he is a traet

does anyone post on these boards who's actually studied political science?

I majored in it in college - its quite a different field now (been taken over by statistics, mostly.)

GOOD

http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2010/02/02/saxby-chambliss-military-should-keep-dont-ask-dont-tell/?cxntfid=blogs_political_insider_jim_galloway

In context, it makes a modicum of logical sense. It's still completely laughable, though.

"Alcohol use, adultery, fraternization, and body art,"

Right there you have the divide between the Republican base and the youngs - that just sounds like Friday night.

can we also talk about how all of those things are already present in the military?

I dunno I've always been fond of political theory and history, primarily, so reading a bunch of polling data that's been compiled in a desperate bid to be taken seriously as a "hard" science is pretty bring by comparison.

anyway, what you describe isn't so much a political theory as it is a description of how American electoral politics and media interact. There's tons and tons of writing on that subject, of course.

x-post

anyway, where am i going with this? john mccain's primary made me think of all this again, cos it seems to me that the thumbnail sketch of mccain that everybody knows -- "honorable maverick who was tortured as a POW" -- is not weight, it was juice. the feckless national media always considered it very "weighty" but it wasn't, it's a hook. being black in america is no picnic, historically, and neither is doing time in the hanoi hilton, but, lo and behold, in 2008 these ARE "positives" ie, political advantages, of a kind. mccain has always been weight-less, he has always been all-story, all-character. conservatives hated him cos he was "moderate," but that's not even accurate; i don't think it's even accurate to say he was incoherent. he ran on personality, kept winning on personality, and that's how he legislated. i don't think his selection of palin -- the most all-juice, zero-weight figure imaginable -- is or was a headscratcher at all.

yeah, this. and tbh i think i was at one point (lol college) the sort of mccain apologist who would've thought he was a 'weighty' guy.

also, interesting to me is that the kneejerk conservative response (ie - cons i know personally) to lefty 'populists' is that they're all juice and can't Get Things Done, all pie in the sky, can't deal with the hard questions, etc., when now practically all of your Republican heavyweights are juicy juicy juice. even Cheney, who i think is widely considered to be an ugly unpopular dude who nonetheless will make shit happen fuck the haters, is all gas at this point

"Alcohol use, adultery, fraternization, and body art," - Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), on what he claims will follow in the wake of repealing DADT.

lol has this man actually MET a Marine?

EXACTLY WHAT I WAS THINKING

A family member who voted for McCain and kept up w Tea Party stuff pre-9/12 tells me 'The Tea Party has split but this hasn't been talked about in the news yet'. Certainly the era of a no-Republican Tea Party commanding national television support is passing before our eyes...

I minored in poli-sci, but no way have I maintained a scholarly interest in it.

If DADT is repealed, I am sure we will get a marvelous comedy film about a WeHo/Chelsea party boy's travails in the Army, a la Private Benjamin! Has Saxby Chambliss thought of THAT?

The Tea Party has split but this hasn't been talked about in the news yet'.

So someone doesn't watch the news then.

goole i like your theory

you could make a good ad&d style game with that as a starting point

the hilarious thing about SAXBY there is that he's treating being gay as not only dirty and dangrous, but FUN, like a wild night out.

as in, soldiers like to get crazy and do dumb shit -- get drunk, fuck around, be too chummy, get tattoos -- which is why we have rules. if we say it's ok to suck a little cock every now and again, damn, you never know what'll happen!!

xp yeah the tea party civil war as been salaciously covered by TPM among others, dunno if that counts as "in the news" tho

xp max you don't want to get me started talking about politics AND rpgs at the same time

i was going to say, i bet u were into turn-based rpgs, to be thinking about politicians in terms of at least two semi-quantifiable characteristics

roll for juice

what is your saving throw vs sex scandal

is it embarrassing for me to admit i would almost definitely play a politics rpg

+10 race card

If that's Saxby's idea of gaydom, then he needs to show me his body art.

Level 10 Pollster

btw the more i read about nancy pelosi the more i think shes the most weighty person in DC right now

there's a big profile of her in the new esquire, i have not read it yet tho

she has passed hella bills and raised hella money and with only a few really substantial compromises

very proud of her as my local rep tbh

Saxby's political views are heavily influenced by this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWcW6_OGeDk

I've met Pelosi. She was quite nice in person.

What a charming person, this O'Keefe fellow.

is it embarrassing for me to admit i would almost definitely play a politics rpg

― max, 03 February 2010 17:48 (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

+10 race card

― The Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis (Shakey Mo Collier), 03 February 2010 17:48 (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

beaut

http://images.boardgamegeek.com/images/pic317878_md.jpg

this is the paragraph from that O'Keefe article that made me really o_O:

Epstein’s career unraveled in June 2009, when a violent racial assault he committed two years earlier was disclosed. According to a court affidavit, Epstein had karate-chopped a random African-American woman in the face and called her a “nigger” during a drunken late-night romp bar-hopping on Washington’s M Street in 2007, leading to his arrest by an off-duty Secret Service agent. He signed a plea bargain requiring him to attend alcohol rehabilitation courses and donate $1,000 to the United Negro College Fund as a token of his contrition.

like, really?

did dude momentarily forget that he wasn't a movie character or something

karate-chopped? the fuck?

I am having a "why is something so abhorrent also so hilarious" moment

would totally play Nixon in politics rpg

(whips out "enemies list")

What surpises me, Dan, is that he didn't get his ass kicked.

kind of sounds like he did...?

Yeah, maybe.

"leading to his arrest"

shakey that's a real game that nixon is 'shopped onto - nixon vs. kennedy. check it out at boardgame geek

that plea bargain is ridiculous

Breitbart is such an ass. I hope this seriously blows up in his face.

The guy in the 'Homeowners Fail to Refinance' ad on that page looks like a serial killer or worse.

it won't, don't get your hopes up

xp

oh man someone plz write this polisci rpg

you guys care to take sides in Dodd-Bam kerfuffle over bank-reg bill?

http://business.theatlantic.com/2010/02/dodds_resistance_to_volcker_plan_should_signal_its_death.php