Haley: The Senate is the ‘most privileged nursing home in the country’

MicroWave@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 952 points – Haley: The Senate is the ‘most privileged nursing home in the country’
thehill.com

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Thursday called the Senate “the most privileged nursing home in the country.”

In response to a question about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) apparently freezing up on Wednesday while taking questions in Covington, Ky., Haley said on Fox News that the Kentucky senator has “done some great things, and he deserves credit,” but emphasized that “you have to know when to leave.”

““No one should feel good about seeing that any more than we should feel good about seeing Dianne Feinstein, any more than we should feel good about a lot of what’s happening or seeing Joe Biden’s decline,” Haley said. “What I will say is, right now, the Senate is the most privileged nursing home in the country.”

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Well what do you know? I agree with Nikki Haley on something.

She ain't wrong (huuuge edit: ON THIS SUBJECT QUOTE)

The average age IS pretty fucking high. Fresh blood would be good, methinks. Most of these codgers are career politicians who’ve just cling to their positions for decades

Be careful, she used this line to accuse Biden of being declined like McConnell or Feinstein

Biden over Trump was an easy vote. But Biden wasn’t exactly my first pick. There’s something fucked up about people who would be considered absolutely unemployable in any other profession clinging to power and running the country like it was 40 years ago. This applies all around.

I agree with you and her as far as health care but I doubt McConnell and Feinstein are actually enjoying their golden years. You'd expect a nursing home to help with that part.

Oh well I don't feel sorry for them as they are power addicted idiots.

They look miserable. But I don't know if Feinstein is power addicted at this point and not just entirely confused and pupeteered by other people. I wonder what she would answer if you asked her how old she is right now.

Joe Biden's decline? Look, I don't like having great-grandpa in the Whitehouse or Senate or Supreme Court, and I think we should have an age limit, but there's no need to invent a "decline" to make a point.

And I'd press her on naming one "great thing" McConnell has done...

Depends on perspective. If you're a fascist, that list is quite long.

This. He denied Garland to the Supreme Court. Then without a shred of shame shoved Barret through. He blatantly shat on a precedent he himself set. His supporters don't care. They think this is good.

His unwavering support for Ukraine.

Or if you want a dish that is well chilled but much spicier look no further than the Anti-Corruption Act of 1988

Look at the Sponsor, then look at the Co-Sponsor, then read the Summary. Look familiar? 😉

Sad that “one great thing” now equates to doing their fucking job.

To be fair, can you think of anything that would qualify as "one great thing" that doesn't fall under the purview of "doing their job"?

Like, I don't think the expectation is that he would have run into a burning building to save some starving orphans?

Assassinating hitler does not fall under doing their job and yet it would be a great thing to have done.

In her mind, the blocking of Merrick Garland.

I've lost all of my grandparents. Most of them I lost at an age where I could comprehend what was going on. Death is the slowest process on earth. The actual passing is quick. It's emotional and hard but it lasts for the blink of an eye. The decline can take years. To watch somebody age in those final 5-10 of their life is excruciating. It's a drip feed of watching somebody act in ways where you can tell they're just not themselves anymore.

Now with all that said I'm not saying Biden is knocking on deaths door, or that the process even started. What's clear to everybody though is that he's not the same guy as when he started his presidency. He's studders a lot more. He's lost a lot of hair. And he's clearly slower than he was just three years ago.

Hes doing the most stressful job in the world. A job that accelerates the aging process. He's already of an advanced age more so than any president in the history of this country. He's approaching the line of being too old to non functional. So if you're against him you're gonna take that to the extreme and cry he's dying right at this moment. But to everybody else he's past the "he's old" stage to "ehhh he's really fucking old, should he be doing that stage?" That's a decline.

I'm really not seeing any of this. In fact, I see a virulent Biden behind the podium every speech. The decline is greatly exaggerated, if not completely fabricated.

It astounds me that the same people who regularly listen to Trump could listen to Biden and go "my guy is perfectly healthy but Biden is losing it". Total disconnect from reality

Alot of people disregard the fact that he has a speech impediment that makes him stutter. He's trained himself to control it, taking a moment to reset, but yeah it's a stressful ass job so I imagine he has a more difficult time speaking. I'm not gonna say he's a great orater but he does know how to actually deliver a message. Also Those same people talking about his age also completely disregard that Trump is just as old.

He's clearly diminished, but I hope to be as active when I'm in my 80s. Even this guy, who isn't physically what he was 20 years ago, is a much, much better choice than the clown show on the other side.

Oh absolutely. I'd take Biden over the youngest Republican any day. But to act like there's been no decline at all is just denying the facts of being a human on this planet.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Fuck Haley, but she is right about the nursing home part. But there is a fix that Americans don't want to admit - their voting - or LACK OF voting - is what is keeping these elderly Senators in office. Of course she is an opportunist twat that is only saying this to try to hit at Biden indirectly by bringing up the age issue.

Damn if she's not right about that.

She is but I can't help but think she has unstated motives for saying it.

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Wait, are you saying that the Democrats have been carefully sidelining, discrediting and shoving the younger members into a dark closet whenever possible? Man, sounds like we should just support the geariatrics then. No way they should get the fuck out of the way and let the popular young elected members of their party actually speak.

Your strawman is well slain. Get back to me when you have familiarized yourself with how Congress works and acquired a basic understanding of committee assignments, and how laws are passed.

Schoolhouse Rock "I'm Just a Bill" is a great place to start. I'm not kidding. Anyone who can reductio ad absurdum what I just said into what you just wrote needs to start at the very beginning.

Love at the end. They tell em "he's a bill" .. He moan's in a high pitch "oh YYYyah"

Gotcha, I'll just vote harder for the people I don't agree with until they magically replace themselves. You owned me so hard. #Clinton2028

Much like the GOP support of states deciding law, they're welcome to set their parties own age limits.

Person trying to boost popularity says popular thing.

Standard GOP tactic

  1. Complain about how bad the government is
  2. Get elected
  3. Make government worse
  4. Back to step 1

Probably. Still, I'm damned sick of the gerontocracy.

Politician reads the room and adopts the most lukewarm, obvious, low-hanging-fruit take in an effort to score free publicity. Damn, really raising the bar here.

I actually hate Nikki Haley. Her policies, ideas, and alignment are all wrong. But she is somehow self-aware enough to realize that a bunch of old people are running our country right now, and how detrimental that is.

Her miscalculation is that she believes young voters will refill the GOP coffers with people as crazy as she is. Won't happen.

100%. We need age and term limits for all elected offices.

We don't want a Senate with 60 Ted Cruz's. I agree with the other guy. Money reform first. Then we can consider age and term limits.

Abolishing the senate is the right reform for the senate.

This is the Way.

You say that out loud tho and people think you're Hitler. There is nothing undemocratic about advocating the abolition of an undemocratic institution.

Considering who is in control of the house, I can't help but think this is a bad idea.

If there is the will to abolish the Senate, then there will be a will to change how the House is elected and how many members it has.

Unless Republicans get overwhelming power in the house due to gerrymandering and then do it.

Clearly would remove districts from the system. Proportional elections are the only viable way to produce a legislature.

You're presenting problems to abolishing the Senate that simply won't exist because it's a MUCH bigger undertaking than you're presenting.

Republicans won't be doing anything in that scenario because the fascists would literally revolt (while bankrolled by the rich) before they allow the Senate to be abolished.

I guess the question is: what problem are you trying to solve by instituting age limits and term limits?

If the issue is the advantage of incumbency and having entrenched politicians with large campaign funding operations behind them, then maybe a better way of solving this would be campaign finance reform that prevents private dollar donations from non-individuals and heavy restrictions on how much an individual can contribute.

All that term limits and age limits in Congress would achieve is setting an artificial barrier for those who do the job well while setting up a new group of people to benefit from the legislature's dysfunction.

Wouldn't it be easier to "get your guy" in if they pushed rotate people through the Senate. Its not like either situation is good. But I don't trust Nikki for shit. I still think she's a stooge

Power corrupts. The end. The longer you are in positions of power, the more exposure you have to influence from money. It needs to be a revolving door for every elected official. Get in. Do good things. Lead by example. Move on up or gtfo.

I feel like that misses a lot about how politics work. Someone just getting into office is often far too ineffective for us to allow our system to be run by first and second term legislators. First term legislators are often fairly useless because they are still learning the job. I'm not saying there is no solution to that, but it would have to be coupled with massive reform around the support mechanisms for our legislatures. You think the federal government is slow moving now, just wait until everyone in office has no idea how to do their job.

Edit: Also as others have pointed out, you'd also be terming very competent legislators along with the corrupt ones. I think people overestimate the amount of corruption in the legislative branch, due to the media creating a confirmation bias. For every evil corrupt piece of shit, there are 5-10 people you've never heard of just doing what they think is right (even if you don't agree with them).

Edit2: maybe a better solution is a dementia/Alzheimer's in person test given to all legislators past 65 every year, evaluated by a 3 doctor panel. If you fail the test, you're legally prevented from running and forced to resign if in office. If removed the political party impacted gets to appoint the replacement, otherwise if there is no political party (true independent) the executive branch of that state gets to appoint replacement.

Places that have instituted term limits have found them to backfire. They have less effective legislators who are more corrupt.

It makes sense when you think about who would be able to run constantly -- rich, retired people.

Who cares what this monster says? Yall want federal abortion bans, lgbt bans, more environmental damage and worse access to medicare?

Nikki actually doesn't want federal abortion bans. She has advocated for a state's only approach.

Haley said on Fox News that the Kentucky senator has “done some great things, and he deserves credit,”

Examples?

Republicans consider damage to the country a great thing.

For one, he destroyed the legitimacy of the federal judiciary & supreme court. Which is terrible, but great. Like Voldemort.

"Absolutely devastating, the worse person you know just made a great point."

She's terrible, but she doesn't crack the top 100 worst American politicians. Her point is accurate, though.

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This is due to the rules of the Senate which state that committee seniority is given to the longest serving members. Both sides keep people in office as long as possible to secure these important positions.

The horrible evil lady is right! Let's not do what she says otherwise.

Of course, attacking McConnell's health was part of the game plan. She's not wrong though.

As much as I think it's a good thing to have people with life experience in roles such as that, if that life experience involves being around during the invention of fire, you may be past the point of relevance.

Most of them are a day older than dirt, to them the bible is new age literature.