the fact she was still active in politics at age 90 doesn't sit well with me; even less that she's not exactly a unique case. That smells strongly of "late Soviet Union" levels of political constipation.
Capitalism is when communism
“70s and 80s” refers to a time period in the Soviet Union. In glorious USA, it refers to the age of its politicians.
active in politics
Sources tell me she was extremely passive in politics. Almost like she wasn't present at all.
She led an amazing life. What else can you say? She was an amazing woman.
I didn’t know that. You’re telling me now for the first time.
Whether you agreed or not, she was an amazing woman who led an amazing life.
She's been dead for a couple years, the strings they were using to puppet her around finally broke
Pour one out for the staffers. This was almost certainly the pinnacle of their elder abuse careers
Well, now they have something for the portfolio. They'll move onto another old mummy because of their success rate with her. They had her voting on something fucking YESTERDAY. She voted, went home and fucking DIED of old age!
she didn't actually vote in the vote, it's possible she actually died during the vote lol
I watched a video of it earlier. I couldn't see her, and someone much younger cast her vote for her.
How the fuck is this allowed? Oh wait. There are no rules for the people who make the rules
There's this great video of a Texas legislative body where everyone's like leaping over their desks and using long poles and shit to vote for all the other legislators who are absent. It's like the most pathetic sport you can possibly imagine.
One of those small moments in which the real nature of liberal electoralism shows through.
No shortage of geriatric Senators they can gloom on to. Maybe they can go work for McConnell next.
It's also really funny this legitimately removes any moral high ground the libs could have in criticizing McConnell.
"You let a corpse get pushed into the senate to fake a vote 6 hours before she died" is a legitimate reading on the situation.
For a bunch of people who only seem to care about winning the mythical undecided moderate they really don't make much effort to take the easy moral high ground when it's actually presented to them.
Legitimate question, is it?
Every other senator just watched them shove an unresponsive corpse in front of cameras for years, destroying her legacy with anybody who doesn't have a Rachel Maddow haircut, to avoid having to do any competent political work.
Would you hire the guys from weekend at bernies to work in the nursing home you live in?
This was always going to be her legacy, she was a liberal ghoul, she just lived long enough to become a literal ghoul
Destroying her legacy of what, being an awful person even by the standards of her own time?
Rest in piss Feinstein
It shows the staffers are willing to abandon all morals and ethics to play ball and let an elderly person hang onto power until they literally die.
This appeals to certain kinds of politicians in DC, turns off others
You do make a good point, this is like the closest they can get to becoming a litch
https://www.c-span.org/video/?314972-7/senator-dianne-feinstein-syria
In North Korea the party has to make old people work for them until they drop dead and everyone just watches and has to act like it is normalLost in the recent history of her public submission to elder abuse, let's not forget that she was a true lioness of the senate.
Wait, sorry, I'm now being informed that she was the architect of the dismantling of the USPS (the largest landowner in the US), where her husband's private equity firm got sweetheart deals on all the real estate the USPS had to sell off to stay 'profitable'.
Her last tweets were advocating against Azerbaijan. Very suspect that a perfectly healthy 90 year old would just drop dead like that. Occam's Razor tells us that Erdogan personally ordered the hit, intends to reinstate the ottoman empire with the bay area as its new Constantinople. Be vigilant for Jannisaries and Corsairs around California in the coming months.
well at least the turks can make a decent beer. On the assumption they might replace IPAs I'm willing to hear out Ottoman control of America
that was the greeks don't mix them up they both hate being confused for each other
Sinope (Sinop) is in Turkey. Diogenes was born and raised there and moved to Athens with his father a bit later.
I don't know man I think this stuff goes a bit deeper than that eastern european regional rivalries can get heated
Yeah to be fair i'm from somewhere culture isn't really worth taking seriously so i assume things are a bit different when there's, uh, traits that aren't John Wayne worship and terrible daytime tv
I can't wait for the liberals to realize this means they get no more federal judiciary appointments until the next term and proceed to do nothing about it and continue to tell me they have a functioning democracy.
Half of the libs in the
thread are decrying that while the other half are whitewashing her legacy. There are a small handful who are very carefully, so as to not upset mods, clowning on her.There are a small handful who are very carefully, so as to not upset mods, clowning on her.
doing god's work
Oh they're already on it they've been own-goaling everytime McConnell short circuits.
"This is ridiculous McConnell needs to retire but republicans will never do what's right all they care about is clinging to power"
"What about feinstein?"
"She appoints justices so she's fine"
If only the democrats had the political savy to not make literally all of their federal judiciary appointments depend on the health of a 90 year old women who has repeatedly had to be told what she released as a press statement earlier that day.
I got some frothing liberal rage for saying that I did my part (Note: I absolutely did not do any of this) voting for Dianne Feinstein in California because she was the DNC's "Vote Blue No Matter Who" pick and I was just following marching orders.
yeah we gotta stop assuming that incredibly elderly politicians will live forever
Is that true? I thought Newsom got to appoint a replacement
Newsom can appoint a replacement (who will be a senator) but through the filibuster the GOP control who can be appointed to the judiciary committee (which Feinstein was on) as a replacement and they said pre-death they won't seat a new appointment to that committee to stall all appointments.
I’ll be honest I don’t think I could design a less functional system to run a government than what the US does if I tried
It's so hilariously systemically broken (and I'm not even talking about the intentional ways to protect capital) that finding anyone who defends it at a structural design-level blows my mind.
I've found I get more of a rise out of liberals from talking about how poorly-designed their worshiped system is than highlighting the actual material harm that it creates and this is before I even start bringing real critique to capital about it.
This reminds me of the lib who posted a link to the Wikipedia article on the separation of powers in the US government in an attempt to own the hexbears.
Seriously, like I don’t have trouble putting myself in the shoes of the capitalist and going “what would I do here to protect my position and grow my wealth” and I would still fix a bunch of this shit because it’s either counterproductive or unsustainable
Like, I feel like a basic feature for just “having shit keep running” in this situation would be whoever the replacement is automatically gets all committee assignments and other things their predecessor had. Basically the senate should have to pretend that whoever the new person is is still Diane Feinstein
They're probably so excited by Nancy Peloi's daughter being her anointed successor they don't care
She just died? Wow. I didn’t know that. You’re telling me now for the first time. She led an amazing life. What else can you say? She was an amazing woman. Whether you agreed or not, she was an amazing woman who led an amazing life. I’m actually saddened to hear that. I am saddened to hear that. Thank you very much.
Approving of all the jokes, but also remember, she was, much like the emperor in 40k, a rotting hub of an entire power network that the Democrats failed to transit away to a successor. This is a disaster for them as decades of institutional knowledge, power, and connections is wiped out and they scramble to fight amongst the scraps for their own patronage networks.
We're going to see this happen a lot, as neither the GOP nor the Dems have stable power transitions, elder retired statesmen, a formal ladder of heirachy, or even just a personal apprenticeship system. Every Gerontocrat that dies hollows the US state out in a way that decades of UK politicians actively trying could only dream of.
This is a disaster for them as decades of institutional knowledge, power, and connections is wiped out and they scramble to fight amongst the scraps for their own patronage networks.
We're going to see this happen a lot, as neither the GOP nor the Dems have stable power transitions, elder retired statesmen, a formal ladder of heirachy, or even just a personal apprenticeship system. Every Gerontocrat that dies hollows the US state out in a way that decades of UK politicians actively trying could only dream of.
elder retired statesmen
Thinking about this more Obummer exists, unfortunately.
Obummer is an entirely self-interested Neoliberal loser, though. He can't help them navigate an institutional collapse. He never did anything to develop a new generation of party members, all he's done is cash in and occaisionally step out of retirement to make things dramatically worse.
Mostly good take, I would argue he has done patronage and it's the reason the technocrat neolibs wield so much power in the party and in the private sector.
It even intrudes on my industry where some webshit devs are still coasting on 'saving healthcare.gov'.
Obama is the best they have. In earlier times they'd have the Longs and the Kennedys as emergency backstops...but...gestures around
I just don't get it! There are plenty of Gen X neoliberal stooges they could pass this on to. They could continue dying at their desks and still get a good roster going. I guess it just goes to show that they don't even care about what happens to their projects after they die. It's all about grifting and hanging out with Epstein
I don't know who said it but I saw a description of this that made sense to me. In previous eras, American politicians had policy visions, real projects they were trying to see enacted. They could find successors and train them, introduce them into their patronage networks, etc. The modern era of American politics lacks any cohesive vision (beyond dismantling the system and selling it off to private owners), they don't have any vision of a future to share with younger politicos. There is no larger project they are a part of, they are all there simply for the personal power, influence, and the wealth that brings them. There's no compelling reason to step down if you don't give a shit what happens after you die, so you just ride it out.
yeah every politicians is a puppet anyway, might as well hang in there for 100 years until you die soaking up the corruption money
Passing on political responsibilites to a younger generation would jeapordize their ability to do insider trading.
This is a good point. Biden has no successor. There is no charismatic and widely liked Democrat being groomed for power. All they've got a Kopmala, who can't speak in public without saying something bizarre and laughing at a strategically devastating moment, and rat boy, who is mostly known for his skills in racism and killing dogs.
Obama disbanding his troops then letting the entire state level Dem apparatus starve without support looks so much bigger in retrospect.
from the perspective of the party's long-term interest, they have AOC but they're too right wing to get behind her and save capitalism. What they should have but don't is someone exactly like AOC (but more openly neolib) with 5 or 10 more years experience to do another 2008 obama.
the closest thing to anyone reasonable is probably governor whitmer and i only say that because i don't know how old she is.
I love how the libs were crying for months that they can't replace her and have to wait for the next election, even if she is missing a ton of votes. Now she just died anyway.
Its like RGB all over again. Can't wait till the next time the libs talk about some barely alive ghoul hanging onto their position of power for way too long. They'll never learn.
I always thought a funny bit would be to purposely get politicians names wrong to piss off libs who regard them as heroes and also, to show that you have such little respect for people like Alexa ocasio cortez and Mike McConnell
All I'm saying is Jim McCoin wasn't tortured in Vietnam but he should have been
Because I'm a
and I must put RGBs everywhere
Actually this is a lie, my PC has no RGB lights.
Heyya Harold, this week on handymans corner, we are going to turn this old boat trailer into a wheelchair/life support system for decrepit politicians!
Hawwww uncle red, why don't they just retire and go fishing or something?
Well gee Harold, that's a good question. But we're not here to answer questions of a philosophical nature. Now, Hand me the duct tape, wouldja?
That show has always brought me great joy. As the years pass,.I'm turning into a Possum Lodge member and I'm digging it..
I just bought a vest that has like twenty pockets for... stuff. I've always been one of those guys that always has rocks in their pockets and I almost always carry a small whittling project with me everywhere.
"I'm a man, I can change, if I have to, I guess"
I was just making a light up keyboard joke I have no idea what the others are on about
I've still never seen them admit that Bader-Ginsburg fucked everyone and killed Roe out of absolutely pure unalloyed arrogance. It was such an utterly disgusting, horrible thing to do and she's hailed as a hero for it.
Sorry, I guess we can't pass the thing to do the thing.Government shut down forever (only the nice parts, not the bad parts)
they'll still wheel in her corpse for the next vote, they're gonna use AI voice generation to get her ayes
Top comment is actually pretty based "Senator Feinstein's team have announced that regardless of her passing, it will not impact her job performance and she will not be stepping down."
will be in the next few days
