[Julie Steiner]

I don't, as a Christian, hate her. I hate her politics which is a very different thing.

"Love the sinner, hate the sin," eh? Hmmm. I'm having some trouble delineating where the hate stops and the love begins. Something about the nasty nicknames makes it feel more personal than just political to me.

As far as checks and balances are concerned, I never saw a single Democrat march against Senator Robert Byrd (God rest his soul) for his long association with the KKK, did you?

I don't think "checks and balances" means what you think it does, Charlie. Most people use the term to refer to the separation of powers among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. As when, say, the Senate is supposed to vet and vote on the President's cabinet nominees.

Geez, Julie, as usual, you miss the point.

Finally, something we can agree on. You're right, Charlie--I'm missing the point.

Before, I didn't understand why you were replacing a relevant confirmation hearing question (namely, whether Jeff Sessions did or did not abuse his power in his home state to disenfranchise elderly black voters) with a seemingly irrelevant question (namely, whether or not Elizabeth Warren did or did not enjoy an unfair employment advantage due to her claims about the ethnicity of one of her great-great-grandfathers.)

Now, I don't understand why you are replacing a relevant confirmation hearing question (namely, whether Jeff Sessions did or did not abuse his power in his home state to disenfranchise elderly black voters) with a question that is even more irrelevant (namely, whether or not former Democratic Senators Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy had significant character failings).

Silly me. I thought the whole point of a Senate confirmation hearing was to determine things like whether the Attorney General nominee under consideration was likely to promote equal justice under the law.

You seem to be saying that Elizabeth Warren, as Democratic Senator, had no right to raise a question about that, because nobody's perfect, and Democratic Senators have character failings, too.

Have I got it now? Is that the point? "Let the Senator who is without fault cast the first stone"?

Wow, I hope not, or no Senator of any party will be able to question any of Trump's nominees.

[Jim Moonan]

Sen. Warren did not attack Sessions personally, didn't call him names, insults, mutter half-truths and disparaging words. She was stating her opinion based on facts vociferously but within the bounds of what we all know as civil discourse.

Trump is his own worst enemy. Someone please -- give him enough rope.

I'm with Julie et al. on this one. Sessions has been AG for mere hours and already he's joined the Faustian fold, the alt fact universe:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.065ddc993e87

[Charlie Southerland]

No, Julie, you still missed the point. I know very well what checks and balances and advice and consent are for. I did get a little lernin' in skool.

The only reason Fauxahontas stood up to deliver her soliloquy was to besmirch, smear and demean her own colleague, which she was rightfully shut down for. She is a parody of what a US Senator should be. I saw Senator's Byrd and Kennedy do the same to several Supreme Court nominees. You don't find Republican Senators in the modern era doing such things to SC nominees.

SInce it can't be proven that AG Sessions ever abused his power to disenfranchise any voter, black or white, it's kind of like asking him when did he stop beating his wife. That's one point. The second point is that Ms. Wampum Fawn knew he was going to be confirmed regardless of what she said, but by God, she was gonna say it come Hell or high water. It was a useless exercise. Defending her disengenuousness is disingenuous. Her politics is Statism. I hate her Statism, Julie, because it is Godless and goes against everything I believe as a Christian. It doesn't mean I don't pray for her.

I am all for raising legit questions about a nominee's qualifications and character, but not from the likes of someone who has no fidelity to fairness or prudence, and in fact, would destroy not only that nominee, but any Republican put forth by the President. It's what I hate about politics. It's gotcha' all the time.


Let the Senator who is without a stone cast the first fault.


James B. Since you don't know Cruz or Pence, especially Pence, I don't see how you can qualify Warren as any more or better of a Christian than either of them. She is a Statist, which separates her from Christian ideals. Christians usually give free testimony of their beliefs, James. Cruz and Pence have. I haven't seen Warren's testimony, have you?

[Julie Steiner]

Originally Posted by Charlie Southerland

Fauxahontas
...
Ms. Wampum Fawn

The fact that your target is mostly white doesn't make your racial rhetoric any less offensive, Charlie. Knock it off.

You know full well that you're flirting with Eratosphere infraction territory for uncivil discourse, and it will give me no pleasure to say, "He had appeared to violate the rule. He was warned. He was given an explanation. Nevertheless, he persisted."

[Andrew Frisardi]

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

The fact that your target is mostly white doesn't make your racial rhetoric any less offensive, Charlie. Knock it off.

It also incidentally sounds a lot like Trump. Charlie, you're a poet, don't emulate our linguistically challenged bigot-in-chief.

[John Whitworth]

I really don't see why Charlie's discourse is uncivil. These people are politicians and judges are they not? No words can be too bad for them. Leastways that's the way it is over here.

[Julie Steiner]

I may be over-moderating, and I'll ask Jayne and Alex if I am, but it seems to me that deliberately offensive name-calling based on race and ethnicity is not conducive to civil discourse here or anywhere else, regardless of whether the target is a politician.

I have no problem with Charlie's expressing his opinion that Warren enjoyed some sort of race-based advantage to which she was not entitled.

I do have a big problem with the Native American-themed mockery of Warren, because it seems to me that there's a very short step from there to mocking Native Americans in general.

John, is anti-Semitic language about Benjamin Disraeli not anti-Semitic because he was a politician?

[John Whitworth]

There was never any doubt that Disraeli was racially a jew, albeit a Christian one. There does seem doubt about this woman's native-American status. Or is there, Julie?

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Elizabeth Warren, like a lot of kids, grew up with family stories of a native heritage back some generations. Children believe the stories they hear of their ancestors. She didn't politicize it, her opponent in a Senate race dug it out of her past. There is no real evidence that she gained from it or even thought much of it when she wrote it down, once, in college. The college used it because they were so damn white they would use anything like that.
She claims it, on the maternal side I think, which is heard to nail down genetically. Paternal line can show haplogroup C or Q3 but even that wouldn't prove anything one way or another. She was naive and a bit foolish, as a million Americans are, to romanticize the story. She was young and her take on it lacks certain understandings about the Native experience. She may very well be 1/32 Cherokee regardless. Her answer to the demands for a test from a politicized jackal should be the same as the birther bullshit. F&*k off.

She is smart woman. A strong woman. A common theme in your silliest vitriol Charlie. She would mop the floor with both the geniuses aping Trump on this thread who get their geopolitical vision from Spengler's waste basket and carefully placed bubble gum wrappers.

A woman who has been here 21 years, who came here at 14 was deported to Mexico yesterday, a place she has no history or shelter in. Her community laid down in from of the ICE buses to try and stop it. Her children watched her dragged off through the bus windows. And Charlie, finds it important to ape President Schmuckstick. Anybody that is quiet about the deportation while it digs into the Republican shit pile to fill its hands with their excrement to throw at one of the few voices in the State taking a hard stand against what is going on here is a collaborator.

And if anybody finds my language more disturbing than the constant subtle rooting for the policies now taking form that cheerfully destroy lives to secure power, than you no longer need to look at the history books and wonder "how did people let that happen?".

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elemen...americas-shame