Ted Kennedy was elected by a plurality of his constituents many, many times. There was a campaign for each one of his terms and he won. Not so much "hired" as "elected." If the Republicans of that era could have unseated him, I presume they would have. In fact, the question that you may do better to ask is, "why couldn't a conservative in Massachusetts unseat someone with that much baggage?"
RFK and Pete Hegseth, whom I presume the earlier poster was alluding to because of his confirmed alcoholism, were appointed by the current President and confirmed by the Senate. There was no campaign and they were approved largely along party lines, which is more akin to "hiring" and that is an obviously less exhaustive process.
I can only assume that your connection to this was, "haha booze... Ted Kennedy!" Maybe you could graduate to parroting a different joke from Rush Limbaugh? Why don't you sample something from the "I do not think that 12-year old Chelsea Clinton is attractive" section?"
> Ted Kennedy was elected by a plurality of his constituents many, many times.
Massachusetts voters condoned Chappaquiddick. He was still a drunk and worse. Ted Kennedy was never able to overcome Chappaquiddick when running on a national level. There's no doubt that the Chappaquiddick incident was one of the primary reasons he lost the 1980 primary, when he had his best chance of succeeding.
> If the Republicans of that era could have unseated him, I presume they would have.
Why? Massachusetts voters are overwhelmingly Democrats, and all sorts of disgusting characters like Ted Kennedy are elected to high office. The Democrat voters of Massachusetts were willing to overlook Chappaquiddick and that's all there is to it.
> RFK and Pete Hegseth, whom I presume the earlier poster was alluding to because of his confirmed alcoholism, were appointed by the current President and confirmed by the Senate. There was no campaign and they were approved largely along party lines, which is more akin to "hiring" and that is an obviously less exhaustive process.
Again, this only hurts the original argument. Hegseth and RFK Jr. are mere appointments. Neither of them to my knowledge has done anything as heinous as what Ted Kennedy did at Chappaquiddick but let's assume they did. Every few years Massachusetts voters spoke loudly and clearly, affirming their support for someone who drove so drunk that a woman was killed as a result. So the DUI snark above is kind of a joke, and deserves a response.
Heck you could argue that the national scrutiny that Hegseth and RFK Jr. faced was much more of a vetting than Ted Kennedy received in his machine state, but whatever.
> I can only assume that your connection to this was, "haha booze... Ted Kennedy!"
The truth hurts. If Democrats didn't want to defend Ted Kennedy they shouldn't have elected him. I happen to be fond of drinkers who don't kill people. Honestly I care much more about the fact that he abandoned Mary Jo Kopechne to die, and that he received special treatment in court.
> Maybe you could graduate to parroting a different joke from Rush Limbaugh? Why don't you sample something from the "I do not think that 12-year old Chelsea Clinton is attractive" section?"
The most famous example of a joke at Chelsea Clinton's expense was told by John McCain, who stated that the reason for her ugliness was the fact that her father was Janet Reno. John McCain was elected by a plurality of his constituents many, many times.
Wouldn't that changed law encompass the automated software as well, thereby being in violation? I am not a lawyer, but the ridiculously broad language in the spending bill doesn't seem to leave much room for that sort of thing.
The spending bill thing says the law can't target X, so you target a superset of X instead.
Suppose the bill said "no laws about horses!". Okay then if you want to make a law regulating the manufacture of horse shoes, you target the law to "odd-toed ungulates" instead.
It's considerate of them to start with an Ayn Rand quote. That lets me know that what I'm about to read hasn't been considered seriously and shouldn't be taken as such.
I think the problem here is that there isn't just one way in which Donald Trump is unduly influenced by Russia in ways that are difficult to explain. I can understand being skeptical, but there's several independent actions Trump has taken that are all inexplicably sympathetic to Russian interests.
Just some quick examples:
* Recommending American de-nuclearization while stating that Russia is no longer a threat to America.
* Dismantling cybersecurity programs that are intended to identify and counter Russian hacking efforts.
* Peace negotiations with Ukraine and Russia that require no concessions made by Russia.
All of these actions are being taken despite polling poorly with Americans. You could say that none of these definitively proves that there is Russian leverage over Trump and you would be technically correct. The flip side of that coin is that you also can't explain why these actions are in America's best interest.
You forget that Trump's enemies are all married to this narrative of Trump as Russian asset. So I'm very clear that he will try to destroy as many as these people as possible during his second term. This includes all the people pushing support for Ukraine, which is seen as a Biden project. It has nothing to do with helping Russia and more with his personal preservation in power.
Respectfully, you're chalking a lot of this administration's questionable behavior that consistently benefits Russia up to temporarily aligned goals based on his fragile ego and fear of rightful imprisonment.
I'm not saying that you're wrong, but that is an awful lot of accidental benefit for Russia and precious few others. Far too much for my tastes.
You don't have to be murderous to be an enemy. They clearly want to throw him in prison, so isn't that enough for someone in that position to call them enemies?
Well, we can't understand the motives, because Trump won't tell us, and even if he did, it's not like we shouldn't be skeptical of whatever he might say.
I do think another plausible explanation is that Trump has dictator envy and idolizes Putin, and so he tries to emulate him and do things that would make him happy.
But it's not clear how far something like that would go. I think it's reasonable to suspect that Putin has something that he can use as leverage over Trump, but that's of course near-impossible to prove at this point.
You just said a lot of things that are easily disproven.
>war being waged in an unknown place
It's Ukraine. They've been an ally in a strategic location for decades. Just because you can't find it on a map doesn't mean I can't.
>for an unknown reason
They were invaded by Russia.
>But funding the dictator Zelensky so that he can capture people who do not want to fight for him and send them to certain death in storm troop units is unreasonable behavior, and from a Christian point of view, even disgusting.
>They've been an ally in a strategic location for decades.
Ally in what? Typical gaslighting.
Before the invasion, no one could find Ukraine on a map and no one considered it an ally (if they even knew it existed). To such extent that many Ukrainians in the USA before 2014, when introducing themselves, often said they were from Russia - just to avoid having to explain what is Ukraine.
>They were invaded by Russia.
Yes. But what is the war being fought for? What is the end game? Because without an answer to this question, any support for Ukraine looks like warmongering. And for some reason, no one answers it, making the whole situation look like the war is being waged to busificate and kill all Ukrainian men (except for the privileged relatives of officials who successfully left the country despite the ban).
Rather, you hide behind your children, the invaders scream that they only want your money, but you kick the children closer to the attackers so that they slow them down at the cost of their lives, while simultaneously locking your front door and barricading the windows so that the children cannot escape from the house instead of dying at the hands of the attackers, as you want.
The children are crying, screaming that they don't want to die, asking you to let them go. But you are adamant: they must die for you.
Why? For what? There is no answer. Their job is to die, not to ask questions, and if they don't want to die at the hands of invaders, they will die at your own hand.
The most effective ones would be leveraging their contacts and being "in the room" when customers are discussing the problems to which they need solutions.
>[...] that another possibility is people come to expect that someone will just pay the debt.
The last few months are making me respond to that question with "so what?" I would rather that earnest efforts to reduce human misery accidentally benefit someone undeserving rather than to allow those problems to continually get worse.
Heck, I'm even ready for brand new unforeseen problems arising from those efforts. After decades of being lectured about the myriad slippery slopes that come with "too much" charity I'm ready try taking a slide down one or two for a change. We've been trying nothing for a long time and it doesn't seem to have much effect.
Please note that I'm absolutely not disagreeing with you and I apologize in advance if my tone comes across as strident.
But they want to give the special treatment to other car makers: "Under her plan, the licenses could be redistributed to rival electric-vehicle manufacturers like Rivian, Lucid and the Volkswagen affiliate Scout Motors, which also employ a direct-to-consumer sales approach."
So its basically what Trump is doing, but the other way. I'm okay if they strip Tesla's special treatment or give the same to the other EV makes, but not both.
I hate to say it, but I'm really okay either way as I think about it more.
I'd prefer to stay aligned with politicians who don't "go low", but I can also see the benefit of forcing our far-Right extremist party have to occasionally eat some of what they shovel out every day. The mere hint of consequences for the decades of bad faith from the Republican party makes them squeal that they're being oppressed. If they're going to complain about unfair treatment constantly, is it so wrong to make them actually endure some?
I'm a little ashamed, but all of my sympathy for Musk and MAGA has been spent. There are people who are actively being harmed by this administration that are far more worthy of our concern.
"Elon Musk’s alliance with President Trump has prompted Democratic lawmakers to propose stripping Tesla of its ability to sell its cars directly to consumers."
Whatever they are doing, they are doing it for the wrong reasons.
For Trump-like reasons.
That should be enough for all we decent people to have a problem with it.
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