Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) joined Fox’s Maria Bartiromo on Thursday and tore into Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky while repeating many anti-Ukraine talking points
“I note the senator from Kentucky leaving the floor without justification or any rationale for the action he has just taken. That is really remarkable – that a senator blocking a treaty that is supported by the overwhelming number, perhaps 98 at least of his colleagues, would come to the floor and object and walk away…The only conclusion you can draw when he walks away is he has no argument to be made.
He has no justification for his objection to having a small nation be part of NATO that is under assault from the Russians. So, I repeat again, the senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin.”
~ Sen. John McCain calling Rand Paul out for what he is in 2017
He wasn’t really decent. But he sadly was the gold standard for most of the last 20 years at least. And even then he helped bring about the plague of spiteful stupid that is Palin trump et all. You can say a ton of bad things about John McCain. But somehow Republicans at large still manage to be so, so much worse.
I think what it comes down to for me personally about McCain is that even though I disagreed with a lot of his politics, I do genuinely believe he cared about the country and the people in it, and generally speaking he did what he honestly thought was best for them.
We can criticize the relative purity of every politician until we’re blue in the face, but honestly the one overriding characteristic I think it’s fair to demand of every elected official is that they’re honestly working in good faith for the betterment of the country. As long as that’s true I have no deep-seated issue with them.
Senators Glenn and McCain were cleared of having acted improperly but were criticized for having exercised “poor judgment”.
Keating and DeConcini were asking McCain to travel to San Francisco to meet with regulators regarding Lincoln Savings; McCain refused.[7][11] DeConcini told Keating that McCain was nervous about interfering.[7] Keating called McCain a “wimp” behind his back, and on March 24, Keating and McCain had a heated, contentious meeting.[11]
The regulators then revealed that Lincoln was under criminal investigation on a variety of serious charges, at which point McCain severed all relations with Keating.[7]
I’m all for shitting on McCain for some of the questionable takes he’s had in his life, but I don’t think this is the obvious “he’s corrupt” politician mic drop you think it is.
Yeah, I don’t believe McCain didn’t know what he was getting into. They gave him a slap on the wrist and told him not to do it again, even though he was clearly involved. For anyone less wealthy or connected, they would have been convicted as an accessory at the very least.
I dunno that seems pretty prejudicial. It’s literally the job of politicians to listen to their constituents and advocate for them. Obviously there’s a problem of unequal access and representation, but I’m not sure anything he did here is particularly outside that mold, certainly not criminal. Can you actually point to something concrete that he did that you think is criminal?
I would draw a pretty bright line between listening to foreign interests and promoting them. Also, there’s plenty of times the foreign interest is also in your constituents best interest, and the only way to find that out is to listen to their proposals. I’m not saying there’s not plenty of examples of both extremes, but there’s a whole lot of middle grey area that you have to think hard about.
A foreign company wants to build a huge factory here and employ a bunch of workers. They’ll need help navigating local bureaucracy and red tape, but you get a lot of good jobs. However, they’ll then be competing with other American manufacturers, but their output and presence might spawn more jobs beyond just the factory itself.
There’s infinite variations on these kind of premises and to just say that in retrospect it was a corrupt ask or a bad deal is pure hindsight bias.
Again, I’m not saying the man is flawless, no one is, politicians especially, but I do think he mostly operated in a way that put the best interests of the country first.
~ Sen. John McCain calling Rand Paul out for what he is in 2017
You better stop that! Rand Paul didn’t go to Moscow to meet his handlers on July 4th, 2018 to hand deliver a message from Trump!
Not on July 4th like the other Republicans, but it was later that Summer.
Was McCain the last decent Republican? I didn’t agree with any of his politics but at least he was a decent enough man.
He wasn’t really decent. But he sadly was the gold standard for most of the last 20 years at least. And even then he helped bring about the plague of spiteful stupid that is Palin trump et all. You can say a ton of bad things about John McCain. But somehow Republicans at large still manage to be so, so much worse.
I think what it comes down to for me personally about McCain is that even though I disagreed with a lot of his politics, I do genuinely believe he cared about the country and the people in it, and generally speaking he did what he honestly thought was best for them.
We can criticize the relative purity of every politician until we’re blue in the face, but honestly the one overriding characteristic I think it’s fair to demand of every elected official is that they’re honestly working in good faith for the betterment of the country. As long as that’s true I have no deep-seated issue with them.
He pulled plenty of his own questionable shit. He was a Republican, after all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five
No.
I’m all for shitting on McCain for some of the questionable takes he’s had in his life, but I don’t think this is the obvious “he’s corrupt” politician mic drop you think it is.
Yeah, I don’t believe McCain didn’t know what he was getting into. They gave him a slap on the wrist and told him not to do it again, even though he was clearly involved. For anyone less wealthy or connected, they would have been convicted as an accessory at the very least.
I dunno that seems pretty prejudicial. It’s literally the job of politicians to listen to their constituents and advocate for them. Obviously there’s a problem of unequal access and representation, but I’m not sure anything he did here is particularly outside that mold, certainly not criminal. Can you actually point to something concrete that he did that you think is criminal?
Acting as a messenger and promoting foreign interests over the welfare of the nation and his constituents is acceptable to you? Good to know.
I would draw a pretty bright line between listening to foreign interests and promoting them. Also, there’s plenty of times the foreign interest is also in your constituents best interest, and the only way to find that out is to listen to their proposals. I’m not saying there’s not plenty of examples of both extremes, but there’s a whole lot of middle grey area that you have to think hard about.
A foreign company wants to build a huge factory here and employ a bunch of workers. They’ll need help navigating local bureaucracy and red tape, but you get a lot of good jobs. However, they’ll then be competing with other American manufacturers, but their output and presence might spawn more jobs beyond just the factory itself.
There’s infinite variations on these kind of premises and to just say that in retrospect it was a corrupt ask or a bad deal is pure hindsight bias.
Again, I’m not saying the man is flawless, no one is, politicians especially, but I do think he mostly operated in a way that put the best interests of the country first.
az resident here. McCain was a mixed bag. he was deeply racist against native Americans.
Him, Kerry, and Nuland were the ones that set the stage for Ukraine to get invaded, so no he wasn’t decent.