Politicians behaving badly

[SouprMatt]

Jeff Fortenberry, (former) Republican member of the House of Representatives, has resigned. He was convicted of lying about illegal foreign contributions to his campaign.

Nebraska congressman Jeff Fortenberry announces resignation after being found guilty in illegal contribution case

A California jury last week convicted Fortenberry of lying to federal authorities about an illegal campaign donation from a foreign national.

www.cbsnews.com

Both the Speaker of the House and the minority leader asked for his resignation.

 

[theSeb]

I am not even shocked, or surprised, by such news anymore. Oh, another day ending with y, I guess

 

[P___X]

Jeff Fortenberry, (former) Republican member of the House of Representatives, has resigned. He was convicted of lying about illegal foreign contributions to his campaign.

Nebraska congressman Jeff Fortenberry announces resignation after being found guilty in illegal contribution case

A California jury last week convicted Fortenberry of lying to federal authorities about an illegal campaign donation from a foreign national.

www.cbsnews.com

Both the Speaker of the House and the minority leader asked for his resignation.

He got money out of a Nigerian prince. this guy knows something!🙂

 

[SouprMatt]

He got money out of a Nigerian prince. this guy knows something!🙂

*Me furiously digging through my spam folder to find one of those emails*

 

[Arkitect]

Well, if it is any consolation, we've got this twat and his cronies.

I could start a list… but we'd be here all day.

 

[SouprMatt]

Well, if it is any consolation, we've got this twat and his cronies.

I could start a list… but we'd be here all day.

My (somewhat uninformed) take on this is: He’s in charge because nobody else wanted to be the face of the Brexit disaster. It’s going to have disastrous effects on the economy, and the rest of the politicians are more than happy to let Boris take credit for it all.

 

[Arkitect]

My (somewhat uninformed) take on this is: He’s in charge because nobody else wanted to be the face of the Brexit disaster. It’s going to have disastrous effects on the economy, and the rest of the politicians are more than happy to let Boris take credit for it all.

In part you are correct. However there are so many from Reese-Mogg to Raab to Duncan-Smith et al who wanted to take responsibility for leading England (and yes, it is alas, England) to "Freedom".

However Boris Johnson is also an incredibly opportunistic politician — he gladly and greedily reached for the poisoned chalice of Brexit PM and didn't just drain it at a gulp, but is asking for a refill! He would happily sell his children (The ones we know about) for political advantage.

He is also a very clever construct. A brand… "Boris". A very dangerous man with zero scruples and deep, very deep contacts to the Russian Oligarchs. I mean, he made one a Lord and so, we have Baron Lebedev, of Hampton in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and of Siberia in the Russian Federation sitting in our unelected house in a position of influence.

Luckily this is now coming under scrutiny.

 

[SouprMatt]

In part you are correct. However there are so many from Reese-Mogg to Raab to Duncan-Smith et al who wanted to take responsibility for leading England (and yes, it is alas, England) to "Freedom".

However Boris Johnson is also an incredibly opportunistic politician — he gladly and greedily reached for the poisoned chalice of Brexit PM and didn't just drain it at a gulp, but is asking for a refill! He would happily sell his children (The ones we know about) for political advantage.

He is also a very clever construct. A brand… "Boris". A very dangerous man with zero scruples and deep, very deep contacts to the Russian Oligarchs. I mean, he made one a Lord and so, we have Baron Lebedev, of Hampton in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and of Siberia in the Russian Federation sitting in our unelected house in a position of influence.

Luckily this is now coming under scrutiny.

Thanks for the additional context!

 

[lizkat]

My (somewhat uninformed) take on this is: He’s in charge because nobody else wanted to be the face of the Brexit disaster. It’s going to have disastrous effects on the economy, and the rest of the politicians are more than happy to let Boris take credit for it all.

It was pretty interesting --to say the least-- that when the "leave" vote got more than the "remain", some of the then most visible Brexit promoters had said See? we were onto something, eh? And then they suddenly had oh so many other things to attend to, and disappeared as promptly as if nine years old and their moms had rung the dinner bell.

Of course someone inept and shady but charismatic (in the 21st century reality-TV sense of that word) was bound to step into that vacuum. Hence Boris, as companion bookend to The Don across the pond.

I had been thinking the world was slowly managing to emerge from the rude and wacky shocks of the launch of that era, despite a lot of repairs left to correct for such poor examples of constructive leadership, but then along comes Putin to demo yet another form of jack-in-the-box, as if Kim Jong-un clamoring for his share of attention were not sufficient evil unto any day.

What i find interesting on this side of the Atlantic at the moment is the sudden stillness of all those pro-Russian advocates in Congress, some of them still sitting, some having retired or having been given the boot. I still shudder to think that at one time the former congressman from California Dana Rohrabacher was said to be on Trump's short list for Secretary of State. He was probably Putin's all time favorite member of the House. The other thing I wonder about is how many in Congress still have or had substantial holdings in Russian business interests. There was a lot of talk about that five or six years ago when some critters outed as having big bucks sunk in Russian companies protested that their assets were in blind trusts so their Russian holdings were not "intentional".

 

[sgtaylor5]

It was pretty interesting --to say the least-- that when the "leave" vote got more than the "remain", some of the then most visible Brexit promoters had said See? we were onto something, eh? And then they suddenly had oh so many other things to attend to, and disappeared as promptly as if nine years old and their moms had rung the dinner bell.

Of course someone inept and shady but charismatic (in the 21st century reality-TV sense of that word) was bound to step into that vacuum. Hence Boris, as companion bookend to The Don across the pond.

I had been thinking the world was slowly managing to emerge from the rude and wacky shocks of the launch of that era, despite a lot of repairs left to correct for such poor examples of constructive leadership, but then along comes Putin to demo yet another form of jack-in-the-box, as if Kim Jong-un clamoring for his share of attention were not sufficient evil unto any day.

What i find interesting on this side of the Atlantic at the moment is the sudden stillness of all those pro-Russian advocates in Congress, some of them still sitting, some having retired or having been given the boot. I still shudder to think that at one time the former congressman from California Dana Rohrabacher was said to be on Trump's short list for Secretary of State. He was probably Putin's all time favorite member of the House. The other thing I wonder about is how many in Congress still have or had substantial holdings in Russian business interests. There was a lot of talk about that five or six years ago when some critters outed as having big bucks sunk in Russian companies protested that their assets were in blind trusts so their Russian holdings were not "intentional".

Hmmm, where is the countervailing power to stop this slide and root these compromised politicians out? We Americans haven't been poor enough for long enough to get our minds and reputations in the mode to really revolt and change things. Too many distractions: sports, recreation, social media...

 

[MissNomer]

Well, if it is any consolation, we've got this twat and his cronies.

I could start a list… but we'd be here all day.

I’ll be honest, having lived in the US for 20+ years, I’m seriously looking forward to getting back to dumb shit like Boris.

He’s a prize prick who should quit now (but he won’t), but compared to the “politicians” here (especially many on the ‘Republican’ side of the line), he’s as harmless as a yappy dog.

 

[Arkitect]

I’ll be honest, having lived in the US for 20+ years, I’m seriously looking forward to getting back to dumb shit like Boris.

He’s a prize prick who should quit now (but he won’t), but compared to the “politicians” here (especially many on the ‘Republican’ side of the line), he’s as harmless as a yappy dog.

In the nicest possible way… I am going to vehemently disagree.

Boris Johnson is far from harmless.
He and his thugs are causing immense damage to this country they all profess to love… the strip mining of the NHS is one example.

His support for the Leave campaign during Brexit was purely cynical and aimed at getting himself into No. 10.

Though he may have lost his Svengali Cummings, he is a dangerous man, in (nominal) charge of a pack of rabid Far Righters. Contrast Europe's response to the Ukrainian refugees with Priti Patel's?
Makes me ashamed to be British.

I cannot begin to describe to you the amount of shear loathing I feel for him and his lazy Tory backbencher enablers. Oh and let's not talk about the POS who started it all… David Cameron. Little Lord Fauntleroy playing the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Some of those Red Wall voters up north are slowly beginning to see the error of their ways. Too late though.

 

[MissNomer]

In the nicest possible way… I am going to vehemently disagree.

Boris Johnson is far from harmless.
He and his thugs are causing immense damage to this country they all profess to love… the strip mining of the NHS is one example.

His support for the Leave campaign during Brexit was purely cynical and aimed at getting himself into No. 10.

Though he may have lost his Svengali Cummings, he is a dangerous man, in (nominal) charge of a pack of rabid Far Righters. Contrast Europe's response to the Ukrainian refugees with Priti Patel's?
Makes me ashamed to be British.

I cannot begin to describe to you the amount of shear loathing I feel for him and his lazy Tory backbencher enablers. Oh and let's not talk about the POS who started it all… David Cameron. Little Lord Fauntleroy playing the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Some of those Red Wall voters up north are slowly beginning to see the error of their ways. Too late though.

When you see what’s going on here, you tend to see that as bad as Boris is (and yes, he’s bad) compared to the shot show over here, it’s nothing.

Over here we have the GOP changing the rules to overrule the people, moving borders to ensure they get wins and doing anything and everything they can to remain in power, despite an ever decreasing number of people who vote for them.

We also have ‘politicians’ who openly call on LGBT people to be executed for, being well LGBT. They lie without any remorse or comeback, and they have their fingers in a huge number of disgusting pies.

Majorie Taylor Green, for example, has openly called for Nancy Pelosi to be executed for treason. And she got away with it.

Politics over here has got so bad, it’s one of the reasons we’re looking at moving back. I genuinely fear for the countries wellbeing - there are way too many rabid right wing politicians who are all but calling for civil war.

So yeah, Boris is a total shit. Zero problems there. But last I saw, I’ll take extreme dumbassness of the likes of Nadine Dorries over blatant absolute hate from the likes of MTG, Crawthorne and all the other sick fucks over in the extreme right.

​

 

[Scepticalscribe]

In the nicest possible way… I am going to vehemently disagree.

Boris Johnson is far from harmless.
He and his thugs are causing immense damage to this country they all profess to love… the strip mining of the NHS is one example.

His support for the Leave campaign during Brexit was purely cynical and aimed at getting himself into No. 10.

Though he may have lost his Svengali Cummings, he is a dangerous man, in (nominal) charge of a pack of rabid Far Righters. Contrast Europe's response to the Ukrainian refugees with Priti Patel's?
Makes me ashamed to be British.

I cannot begin to describe to you the amount of shear loathing I feel for him and his lazy Tory backbencher enablers. Oh and let's not talk about the POS who started it all… David Cameron. Little Lord Fauntleroy playing the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Some of those Red Wall voters up north are slowly beginning to see the error of their ways. Too late though.

Passionate agreement on all of this.

I've long thought that Boris long got a very easy (and far too sympathetic) ride from his chums (public school educated, upper middle class, white boys, who think that trashing a place, a country, an institution, is a "joke", for they live in a world where - of course - peasants/the world/the civil service/the poor/women/wives will clean up after them, whereas if anyone of the wrong class/colour/creed/gender tried something similar they'd immediately end up behind bars), in the media, (print and TV, both), who chuckled, smiled or smirked indulgently, or casually and effortlessly laughed away the thoroughly rotten moral black hole at the heart of his character.

 

[MissNomer]

Passionate agreement on all of this.

I've long thought that Boris long got a very easy (and far too sympathetic) ride from his chums (public school educated, upper middle class, white boys, who think that trashing a place, a country, an institution, is a "joke", for they live in a world where - of course - peasants/the world/the civil service/the poor/women/wives will clean up after them, whereas if anyone of the wrong class/colour/creed/gender tried something similar they'd immediately end up behind bars), in the media, (print and TV, both), who chuckled, smiled or smirked indulgently, or casually and effortlessly laughed away the thoroughly rotten moral black hole at the heart of his character.

Well, what can I say, he was born over here - it’s our fault!

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Well, what can I say, he was born over here - it’s our fault!

No, I think it more a case of "apple doesn't fall far from the tree", or, "black cat, black kitten".

His father was (and is) a prize piece of.....human waste matter.

 

[MissNomer]

No, I think it more a case of "apple doesn't fall far from the tree", or, "black cat, black kitten".

His father was (and is) a prize piece of.....human waste matter.

It does seem to be a common flaw with the Tories - and when not born into it, they become it.

I still remember a classic “Spitting Image” sketch from the 1980’s which had Maggie and her motley cabinet crew (Heseltine, Britain, Howe, Lawson eat al) at a restaurant with Maggie ordering her meal with the waiter in attendance.

Maggie: “I’ll have steak. Raw.”
Waiter: “Certainly, Ma’am. And, for the vegetables?”
Maggie: “Oh, they’ll have the same, as well…”

(Cue shot of the Cabinet chortling around the dinner table)

 

[Arkitect]

It does seem to be a common flaw with the Tories - and when not born into it, they become it.

I still remember a classic “Spitting Image” sketch from the 1980’s which had Maggie and her motley cabinet crew (Heseltine, Britain, Howe, Lawson eat al) at a restaurant with Maggie ordering her meal with the waiter in attendance.

Maggie: “I’ll have steak. Raw.”
Waiter: “Certainly, Ma’am. And, for the vegetables?”
Maggie: “Oh, they’ll have the same, as well…”

(Cue shot of the Cabinet chortling around the dinner table)

If you can lay your hands on it, have a look at the latest Spitting Image to get a glimpse of the current lot…
😈

 

[Scepticalscribe]

It does seem to be a common flaw with the Tories - and when not born into it, they become it.

I still remember a classic “Spitting Image” sketch from the 1980’s which had Maggie and her motley cabinet crew (Heseltine, Britain, Howe, Lawson eat al) at a restaurant with Maggie ordering her meal with the waiter in attendance.

Maggie: “I’ll have steak. Raw.”
Waiter: “Certainly, Ma’am. And, for the vegetables?”
Maggie: “Oh, they’ll have the same, as well…”

(Cue shot of the Cabinet chortling around the dinner table)

But Maggie - and I am not a Tory, and cannot abide them - at least Margaret Thatcher (and Theresa May, for that matter), even if lacking empathy for (or the capacity to imagine the world of) the situation of people who may have fallen through the cracks of life - had some sort of moral core, some sort of sense of responsibility, some respect for the traditions of the country they had been elected to govern, and some idea of what integrity and an ethical existence actually meant.

I disagreed (vehemently) with their policies, but I did not despise their characters. Likewise re John Major, a man I respect, even if I disagree with much of what he did.

However, people such as David Cameron, and Boris Johnson inhabit a wholly different moral and mental - and indeed, physical - universe to everyone else.

@Arkitect is absolutely right.

You thrash the world you live in - Bullingdon Club, or the Brexit referendum, to take two ends of that sorry spectrum of grotesqueness - I still recall David Cameron's insouciance the day after the referendum which has ruined the UK, casually strolling back into Downing Street, hands in pockets, whistling, immediately after he had announced his resignation - and walk away - completely unscathed - from the consequences, any consequences, because - all of your life - someone (women, wives, the poor, the civil service, Someone - Anyone Else, the institutions of state, Europe) has cleaned up after you, wiped up your mess, and you never had to face the consequences of, or responsibility for, or being called to account on, or pay for - at a human or political level - your reprehensible and irresponsible actions and behaviour.

 

[Arkitect]

But Maggie - and I am not a Tory, and cannot abide them - at least Margaret Thatcher (and Theresa May, for that matter), even if lacking empathy for (or the capacity to imagine the world of) the situation of people who may have fallen through the cracks of life - had some sort of moral core, some sort of sense of responsibility, some respect for the traditions of the country they had been elected to govern, and some idea of what integrity and an ethical existence actually meant.

I disagreed (vehemently) with their policies, but I did not despise their characters. Likewise re John Major, a man I respect, even if I disagree with much of what he did.

However, people such as David Cameron, and Boris Johnson inhabit a wholly different moral and mental - and indeed, physical - universe to everyone else.

@Arkitect is absolutely right.

You thrash the world you live in - Bullingdon Club, or the Brexit referendum, to take two ends of that sorry spectrum of grotesqueness - I still recall David Cameron's insouciance the day after the referendum which has ruined the UK, casually strolling back into Downing Street, hands in pockets, whistling, immediately after he had announced his resignation - and walk away - completely unscathed - from the consequences, any consequences, because - all of your life - someone (women, wives, the poor, the civil service, Someone - Anyone Else, the institutions of state, Europe) has cleaned up after you, wiped up your mess, and you never had to face the consequences of, or responsibility for, or pay for - at a human or political level - or being called to account on, your represensible and irresponsible actions and behaviour.

Perfectly expressed! I do admire your (and @lizkat 's) way with words.

The Tories of the 20th Century — much as I disagreed them then — were reasonably rational, and yes, had some form of moral compass.
God! What would we not give to have John Major — or Heseltine even! The fact that those old Tories have pretty much disowned the current lot should tell us something.

Johnson et al are truly in a different league.

And let us not forget Rupert Murdoch hovering behind the scenes… I hope there is a special place in Hell for them.