U.S. Politics; Who Watches the Watchers?

[Martell Spy]

Garrett to quit Congress amid servant scandal, alcoholism

The Virginia congressman announces his retirement after POLITICO reported he used his staff as personal gofers.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/28/garrett-to-quits-congress-amid-servant-scandal-alcoholism-610033

Quote

Rep. Tom Garrett (R-Va.) said Monday that he is an alcoholic and will not seek reelection in November — a decision that came amid mounting scrutiny into his handling of his congressional office.

 

[DMC]

8 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Rep. Tom Garrett (R-Va.) said Monday that he is an alcoholic and will not seek reelection in November

How big of an alcoholic do you have to be to quit Congress because of it?

[Yukle]

11 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Garrett to quit Congress amid servant scandal, alcoholism

The Virginia congressman announces his retirement after POLITICO reported he used his staff as personal gofers.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/28/garrett-to-quits-congress-amid-servant-scandal-alcoholism-610033

 

... ?

Alcoholism makes you ineligible for office but boasting about sexual assault makes you fit for the highest office?

Out of curiosity, I looked up his district. It was a marginal electorate won in 2010 by a narrow margin. By complete coincidence, following the census boundaries it became a solid Republican district thereafter.

I wonder, how many districts are in the same boat? Marginal before 2010 and now absolutely no chance of ever being flipped back again?

[OldGimletEye]

1 hour ago, Sword of Doom said:

That's ironic you are talking about not giving any sort of serious thought on the matter given your excusing horrible actions as just following orders. 

So basically are people in the military with zero actual ethics and are cowards tha would rather just carry out horrible orders instead of having a backbone and saying this is wrong? 

Sorry buddy, your days in the military and this countries military worship and indoctronation has got you a bit blind on the matter. 

Man, you would really hate my opinion on the Marine Corps and their horrible handling of sexual assault cases and their attempted cover ups of suicides. 

Damn. 

Except  in order for the soldier to be on the hook for following the order it has to be in most jurisdictions "manifestly illegal". Yes, there are certain obvious cases that a soldier should not follow an order. But, it is not the case that a soldier is on the hook for every order he follows, even if illegal. The policy behind this is that it is recognized that few military forces could fight effectively without discipline and soldiers promptly following orders, but of course we don't want to give soldiers immunity for doing horrific acts.

But, besides the general legal standard for when a soldier must disobey, I do think that ethical and moral decisions making must be emphasized the day a soldier begins his training, particularly when thinking though tactical problems. I'll give an example: A battery commander is given order to fire willie pete at enemy soldiers. While not illegal per se, willie pete causes horrible injuries. If the battery commander thinks that regular explosives will complete the mission, he should resist using willing pete and immediately go to his senior commander to file a protest and get the order rescinded

Yeah, so I don't think I'm blind to the issue of military ethics, as I have probably been thinking about this way longer than you have.

Anyway, let say your France and its 1939. And Germany just invades Poland. Yeah, you probably don't want to start trying to build an army around let's Jan of 1940.  The point here being its a pipe dream that we can just disband all are military forces  right now. Maybe one day, will rid ourselves of the plague that is war. But, we haven't gotten there just yet. And until that time comes, soldiers will have to be trained and armies raised. None of this means of course that I'm happy with the current state of American foreign policy. Nor does it mean we shouldn't try to give our soldiers the better tools to make ethical decisions, when faced with tough tactical situations.

And I don't disagree that the way the Marine Corps has handled some matters of late is highly disappointing and needs to be fixed. But, that is not an excuse going around smearing everyone that has worn a uniform.

[Yukle]

12 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Except  in order for the soldier to be on the hook for following the order it has to be in most jurisdictions "manifestly illegal". Yes, there are certain obvious cases that a soldier should not follow an order. But, it is not the case that a soldier is on the hook for every order he follows, even if illegal. The policy behind this is that it is recognized that few military forces could fight effectively without discipline and soldiers promptly following orders, but of course we don't want to give soldiers immunity for doing horrific acts.

But, besides the general legal standard for when a soldier must disobey, I do think that ethical and moral decisions making must be emphasized the day a soldier begins his training, particularly when thinking though tactical problems.

To further add to this: soldiers are hardly omniscient. They're not going to know all of the outcomes of every decision that they make in advance. Sometimes the morality of a particular action can only be determined in retrospect.

[DMC]

15 minutes ago, Yukle said:

Out of curiosity, I looked up his district. It was a marginal electorate won in 2010 by a narrow margin. By complete coincidence, following the census boundaries it became a solid Republican district thereafter.

I wonder, how many districts are in the same boat? Marginal before 2010 and now absolutely no chance of ever being flipped back again?

It's got a Cook PVI of R+6 and Obama won the district in 2012.  That's not a "solid" GOP district that has "absolutely no chance" of being flipped - in fact CPR has it rated as "lean" Republican before Garrett resigned.  Now the GOP has to scramble to find a candidate.

[Yukle]

1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

It's got a Cook PVI of R+6 and Obama won the district in 2012.  That's not a "solid" GOP district that has "absolutely no chance" of being flipped - in fact CPR has it rated as "lean" Republican before Garrett resigned.  Now the GOP has to scramble to find a candidate.

How do they determine that? These are the most recent figures:

Candidate	Party	Votes	Percentage
Thomas Garrett, Jr.	Republican	206,572	58.2%
Jane Dittmar	Democratic	147,655	41.6%
All others		668	0.2%
Total votes cast		356,765

That's a huge margin!

Admittedly, I got it off Wikipedia, which may have the wrong info, but it also has Romney winning in 2012.

 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Yukle said:

How do they determine that? These are the most recent figures:

Candidate	Party	Votes	Percentage
Thomas Garrett, Jr.	Republican	206,572	58.2%
Jane Dittmar	Democratic	147,655	41.6%
All others		668	0.2%
Total votes cast		356,765

That's a huge margin!

Admittedly, I got it off Wikipedia, which may have the wrong info, but it also has Romney winning in 2012.

 

It's not the wrong info.  Cook PVI is calculated by how much one party has won within a district in the past two presidential contests in relation to the national vote.  So, if, say, Obama won 50 percent of the district vote in the last two presidential elections, while Obama only won 48 percent nationwide, the district would have a Cook PVI of D+2.  The metric intentionally uses national trends rather than the prior congressional outcomes within district because the latter can be volatile due to incumbency, candidate quality, scandal, apparently alcoholism, what have you.

Anyway, expect to see an article in the next couple days moving the district to a tossup now.  I can't find anything on the GOP having a replacement candidate lined up yet.

[Yukle]

1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

It's not the wrong info.  Cook PVI is calculated by how much one party has won within a district in the past two presidential contests in relation to the national vote.  So, if, say, Obama won 50 percent of the district vote in the last two presidential elections, while Obama only won 48 percent nationwide, the district would have a Cook PVI of D+2.  The metric intentionally uses national trends rather than the prior congressional outcomes within district because the latter can be volatile due to incumbency, candidate quality, scandal, apparently alcoholism, what have you.

Anyway, expect to see an article in the next couple days moving the district to a tossup now.  I can't find anything on the GOP having a replacement candidate lined up yet.

Hmm... even taking that into account, how frequently is even a 6% margin overcome? That's a pretty good barrier to have.

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, Yukle said:

Hmm... even taking that into account, how frequently is even a 6% margin overcome? That's a pretty good barrier to have.

Depends on the cycle, and if it's in an open seat (obviously an incumbent at +6 is going to have much more success).  Now, the Dems have both on they're side.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

6 hours ago, Sword of Doom said:

I was only taking a swipe at the men wearing the uniform. And I don't have to respect service members since we haven't fought a just war in over 70 years.

You know what is real nasty garbage? 

Men in the military sexually assaulting their comrades and a lot of it getting covered up, and the victim blaming that is perpetuate when they try to address it.

Men in the military being toxic bigots and having no issue with being tools of american imperialism or comitting war crimes in the name of an imperialistic country. 

Men in the military being extremely controlling torwards their significant others and abusive towards them. 
 

Everything you wrote here may be true, then it is also true of every man in college, every man in business and every man in america.

There are a lot of decent people in the military, and they shouldn't all be painted with the same brush

 

eta:  what I mean is this happens every where and it gets covered up everywhere. I don't agree with most things the military does, but I do know how wrong it is to say every man is guilty.

 

[drawkcabi]

@OldGimletEye

@Lany Freelove Cassandra

and the rest of the active military and veterans on this board:

Thank you for your service.  

 

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Triskele said:

It's almost certainly just an excuse that's easier to spin favorably. 

Indeed.  It was a joke.

[felice]

8 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

So long as this state of things exist, even relatively peaceful and liberal states will have to maintain military forces. And that means they will have to recruit soldiers and train them in some fashion.

Sure. But that's not relevant to individual people's decision to join the military, beyond ensuring that the option exists. In an ideal world (or at least a somewhat less dystopian one), a military that was used as unethically as the US military has been would find it impossible to recruit new soldiers, forcing a public re-evaluation of the role of the military.

8 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

And when you speak of the "leadership" you talk about the civilian leadership and the voters that ultimately elect them. And given in the US that we have a tradition of civilian control over the military, it is the civilian leadership and the voters that elect them, that have to take some of the blame here. This shouldn't get all pinned on the soldiers.

Trust me, I have no respect whatsoever for the current civilian leader of the US either, or the people that voted for him. And not much more respect for most civilian leadership in general. But the two-party system doesn't generally give voters any good options.

If you were younger, would you sign up for the military today, knowing that Trumperdoo is ultimately in charge of deciding what you do and who you kill?

7 hours ago, dmc515 said:

on Memorial Day

I wasn't aware it was.

[OldGimletEye]

1 hour ago, felice said:

Sure. But that's not relevant to individual people's decision to join the military, beyond ensuring that the option exists. In an ideal world (or at least a somewhat less dystopian one), a military that was used as unethically as the US military has been would find it impossible to recruit new soldiers, forcing a public re-evaluation of the role of the military.

The bottom line though is that the state is going to have to get recruits one way or the other. Whether it gets them through conscription or through a volunteer system.

Even if you have been highly displeased with course of American Foreign policy over the last several years or even decades, most people still, I wouldn't imagine, call for the complete abolition of the armed forces at this time, viewing that mainly based on a whole lot of wishful thinking. And if you accept there is a need for the armed forces, a soceital need, then it's kind of hard to say that somebody is completely ethically off base by joining

And the fact is that you'd probably always find some young people, not always the wisest and experienced at their age, who would likely volunteer, not considering the current political enviroment. Or maybe you could do a french foreign legion thing. The state will find the troops one way or another, if it needs them.

But ultimately, how those forces are used is on the civilian leadership and the people that elect them. I think it's just way way too easy, to pin this all on young soldiers, when its a societal problem, particularly when we've had a tradition of civilian control of the military, which goes back, rightly probably in most people's estimation, to the founding of the country.

Maybe people ought to forget about what the Kardashians had for breakfast this morning and think about this stuff more.

1 hour ago, felice said:

If you were younger, would you sign up for the military today, knowing that Trumperdoo is ultimately in charge of deciding what you do and who you kill?

If I were younger and had my current experience and the wisdom that comes with age, hell no I wouldn't ever volunteer to carry a rifle for the Trumpster.

But, supposing I had enlisted under Obama? I would then feel obligated to obey all lawful orders given to me.

[Yukle]

21 minutes ago, felice said:

If you were younger, would you sign up for the military today, knowing that Trumperdoo is ultimately in charge of deciding what you do and who you kill?

For many that's not really the main motivating factor for their decision.

It's the fact that a full-time wage, with the possibility of further specialised training and healthcare cover, is something that would be otherwise unavailable to them. It's not unusual for armed forces to be dominated by ethnic minorities with high levels of poverty.

I can empathise with people who'd choose the livelihoods of their future, especially the chance to escape poor living conditions. I would not make the same decision, probably, because it's not for me. Yet I understand why some people would.

To use the USA as a further example: more people in the south are in the army per capita than the north, and more people from the rust belt than the east coast. Similarly, black and hispanic people are well represented; communities with high levels of poverty may not have other options available to them.

[felice]

15 minutes ago, Yukle said:

To use the USA as a further example: more people in the south are in the army per capita than the north, and more people from the rust belt than the east coast. Similarly, black and hispanic people are well represented; communities with high levels of poverty may not have other options available to them.

Yeah, those are the ones I have sympathy for. But I still don't respect them the way I would, say, firefighters.

[OldGimletEye]

1 hour ago, felice said:

Yeah, those are the ones I have sympathy for. But I still don't respect them the way I would, say, firefighters.

Until maybe you've met one with a leg or arm blown clean off.

[Bonnot OG]

Was reading a book on John Brown, and my belief that he should have a gigantic monument up for him that memorializes him, not piles of shit like Lee or the rest of the confederates, was solidified even more.

[ants]

On 5/26/2018 at 7:51 AM, Zorral said:

More of the dumbster monetizing for himself his so-called position as POTUS:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/wtf-is-the-white-house-gift-shop-a-tpm-special-report

Gods, this pathetic, like everything else this travesty of a national leader says and does, anyone and anything around him, connected to him, says or does.

 

Did you even read what you linked? It doesn’t say what you are implying it says.