John McCain RIP

Twenty at the most.

I'm willing to bet the dude wouldn't have made it through his first term if '08 had gone differently. So in a way, those extra years have been our gift to him.

Ugh. Thanks to John McCain's political acumen in picking Sarah Palin to be his running mate, the GOP legitimated a toxic kind of imbecility for which the Republic has been paying for nine years (look at who sits in the Oval Office). Thanks to the authorizations for war that McCain has endorsed, hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children in the Middle East are dead. Had he won the presidency, he would have bombed Iran. He would bomb Scranton if one of his staff whispered in his querulous ear that terrorists ran the snack shop of a bowling alley. He would have voted for the Millionaires Bailout Act, aka Trumpcare, sending thousands of his constituents into penury. His "maverick" reputation, based on little more than barbeques and shooting the shit with bovine reporters, is one of the more mendacious examples of resumé swelling I've seen this century. The Beltway press abetted the rise of this fraud, and when the press abandoned him for Barack Obama the intensity of his resentment and the depths of his shallowness were exposed. He is an awful senator and unfeeling man.

Didn't he also call his wife a cunt in public? Class act.

He's a bad man. Humanity would be better off if he died 50 years ago.

A+ obituary, Alfred

but still, cancer is awful

I'd prefer he retire than die.

misread that as "then", was thinking "ice cold, wau"

well I hope he dies eventually, seems cruel to wish immortality on his crumbling body

For anyone who thought brain cancer would slow McCain down, he slams WH for halting the CIA arming of Syrian rebels fighting Assad. pic.twitter.com/sDhTR23ZYA

— Jacqueline Klimas (@jacqklimas) July 20, 2017

@pareene
not even cancer can stop his staff from releasing statements attributed to him calling for strategically incoherent war-making without end

So brave

this fucking guy

c'mooooon Grim Reaper

pvmic

Baller badass. The Maverick strikes again

the replies to this are 'touching';

If you're near a TV, watch McCain come to the Senate floor. Really touching.

— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) July 25, 2017

mccain to america: "i'm taking you all with me!"

Can't believe it's been a year in this McCainless world.

grrrr stop getting my hopes up

One down

NBC inadvertently gave him the most fitting sendoff possible

NBC solemnly announces death of Sen. John McCain.

Wait for it. pic.twitter.com/xAqZ3HtvHa

— Rob Beschizza (@Beschizza) August 26, 2018

that is the best thing i have seen

Hard LOL. Very hard.

John McCain dead today

He was eaten by wolves

He was delicious

Woo hoo I just won $40

https://78.media.tumblr.com/7bf2d0a009018efe046a8a7823f80aeb/tumblr_o29u44e24g1qgcqzko1_250.gif

i piss on your grave, Maverick

after reading his press release, let me invite you all to join me in a hearty "fuck Obama"

Christ, man. Anything Obama puts in a press release about McCain is purely ceremonial. Like the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Or the hoopla when a Jeopardy contestant picks the Daily Double.

nope, read the fucking slop he released. all these dicks are in the same gang.

II liked Obama's statement

John McCain to Lie in State at Capitols in Washington and Arizona

If this means they’re gonna saw his corpse in half, then thumbs up from me. I hope they do it lengthwise, like a Damien Hirst cow.

nope, read the fucking slop he released.

it's supposed to sound heartfelt and genuine, you ass. you and I will never be close enough to the obamas to hear what they really think about McCain. but whatever it is, the odds are overwhelming it is different, deeper and more nuanced than that press release.

i know. they're liars.

It's the kind of lying that is a social skill, morbs.

i don't give a fuck what any of these gangsters "really think."

there you go confusing pols with humans again.

But you seem to give more than a fuck about what they put into a purely ceremonial press release?

it's what they do, along with breathing and killing babies (napalm for Mac, drones for O)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhJ7NmU6lJI

napalm for Mac

tbh, McCain flew fighter escort for B-52s, which dropped high explosives, not napalm. He probably fired very few live rounds at anyone before he copped it from ground-based anti-aircraft fire, because NV had few MiGs and few trained fighter pilots to sally against B-52 raids.

Obama def gave the orders allowing drone strikes that killed babies, but killing babies was not part of those orders, only a concomitant result, which gives him a fig leaf of the sort every military commander arranges. It's how that stuff is constructed to protect the humans who do it from getting paralyzed by conscience. If you asked him if he was happy to kill babies, he'd be shocked you thought that he might be.

You know this, but you fail to grasp it, because it is morally equivocal and you demand firmer ground. Even so, I suspect you excuse your own culpability in thousands of moral crimes of the system we inhabit, as beyond your power to avoid. It doesn't occur to you that the system is also larger than the president, who is also trapped in it.

Morbz u okay boo, seems like death of the Mav got u discombobulated

I don't think Morbs wants to excuse himself of anything. That said, the notion that the average citizen who doesn't participate in atrocities approaches the culpability of the individuals who carry them out or order them smells like horseshit to me. I know, I know, *we live in a society* etc, but lots of people throughout history have refused orders, damn the consequences. McCain followed them and, from all indications, was happy to. And afterwards, never met a war he didn't want to back.

Like, I get that "bloodlust" is an intense diagnosis but it seems to me like a fair one here.

Y’all should be in bed

This is true

Also, I'd forgotten this lovely tidbit

So far Chelsea Clinton hasn’t tweeted anything about McCain’s death, and really who can blame her pic.twitter.com/4wnCdkrjk3

— David Klion🌹🔥 (@DavidKlion) August 26, 2018

him saying Obama was 100% to blame for the Pulse Nightclub shooting "because when he pulled everybody out of Iraq, al-Qaeda went to Syria, became ISIS, and ISIS is what it is today thanks to Barack Obama's failures" makes him forever persona non grata in my book, but I'm not really 'good riddancing' or anything tonight

Guy occupied a weird space. Respected by most (not here obv) for military service and as a ~statesman~ of a kind, but wildly inconsistent and frequently just lived to annoy everyone, all sides.

I’m not sure what any of that really accomplished. In the larger scheme significantly less heinous than his R colleagues. Not a death that inspires dancing and/or grave pissing for me.

Carter

I’m not at home (and typing this on my phone) so I can’t consult my library, but this is a good overview:
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb390/

Worth noting that much of these changes were occurring during the false alarms of 1979-1980
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb371/

Honestly this is better suited to the Cold War thread because there was more going on politically and technically in a short period of time (the accuracy of the MX, the B-1 cluaterfuck, stealth bombers, cruise missiles, neutron bombs, Afghanistan)

Anyway, fuck McCain.

While I respect Bernie, I disagree with him strongly on this. John McCain was a war hawk who sent American youth to fight and die and never met a problem he didn't think could be solved through invasion or intervention. The real heroes are those who fought for PEACE.#GravelGang https://t.co/a3l6700Vo4

— Mike Gravel (@MikeGravel) March 21, 2019

yup.

there are impressive number of tulsi gabbard trolls.

(i mean i keep seeing them in the responses to tweets that have nothing to do w/ her.)

mccain obviously showed personal bravery, but a "hero"-- how can we agree that the vietnam war was a near genodical disaster and claim that those who perpetrated it (even if they weren't calling the shots) are "heroes." nope, nope, nope.

sorry, i know we all know this, just that military worship is down there with cop worship as one of the great sicknesses of our country.

Turns out the orgasm that made Meghan was his greatest crime.

there must have been some way you could have written that Meghan is an irredeemably bad person whose every television appearance exhibits a remarkable negative-count of charisma that didn't make me want to throw up

2009 in one photo

https://44.media.tumblr.com/d1697f0b37f334d069d74a69a5d78d07/tumblr_p7yuytcwn31sj0oe0o4_400.gif

I get her mixed up with Meghan Trainor a lot

i don't trust megans who sneak an h in there

It’s 2021 and we are all Whoopi. pic.twitter.com/SncHJPxHTW

— Justin Martindale (@justmartindale) March 9, 2021

Meghan McCain advertises her book on her fathers headstone. (2022) pic.twitter.com/Q8IgStY8BM

— crazy ass moments in american politics (@ampol_moment) May 10, 2022

A book that's officially (?) only sold slightly more than 300 copies.

It’s a nice look at what all these godawful books would sell without the bulk purchases that every party-line republican is guaranteed.

maybe he preordered

dog