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[Frumple]

I mean, he says he has untreated bipolar disorder, but the thing to remember is a vast majority of folks with untreated bipolar disorder don't act like, well, him. It's not his potential pysch problems making him a raging antisemite, among other things.

It's something that really needs more emphasis considering how badly the sentiment shits on everyone that has major psychological issues and aren't assholes. Which is most of them. Whatever it is might be making things worse, but at the end of the day it ain't the whatever that's causing him to act in the specific way he is.

[Sirus]

Jerkasses have been using mental illness, real or imagined, as excuses for their jerkassery for decades. Remember when Asperger's was the go-to "you can't get mad at me" defense?

I'm not saying that jerkasses can't have mental ailments, or that having a mental ailment makes one a jerkass, or anything like that. All I'm saying is that Kanye is doing jerkass things and deserves to be called out on them regardless of what his mental state might be.

[MrRoboto75]

Mental illness can be an explanation, but it cannot be an excuse.

[da_nang]

Just saw that freight carries dumped about 30% of their employees over the past 6 years, which caused the 24/7 on call bullshit in the first place. Further evidence that railroad companies are lying about there not being enough staff.

Apparently, the companies are running on such small skeleton crews that they literally cannot plan for worker shortfalls.

Fuck it, the railroad workers should all strike, call in sick and remove the battery, sabotage, or what have you. If Biden wanted to avoid an economic meltdown resulting from these strikes... well, he's certainly set the stage for it and poured gasoline all over it.

Why should these railroad workers protect or save an economy that screws them over and won't even give them the dignity of paid sick leave? Might as well burn it down to the ground and start over.

[anewaname]

Ken-ye-ye isn't doing these things for no reason... didn't you know he wanted to be a mid-term GOP candidate but they rejected him because his rhetoric wasn't strong enough?

[hector13]

Doubtful, as he recently launched his presidential bid, and asked Trump to be his VP.

Edit: leading to an interesting thought: presidents are limited to two terms, but if they had their two terms, then ran as VP and the president stepped aside, what would happen?

[Lord Shonus]

That would essentially require a SCOTUS decision, because it is unclear how the 22nd amendment and the 12th amendment interact.

    Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

    Section 2. This Article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress.

The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and all persons voted for as Vice-President and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;

The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;

The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.

The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

There's a very strong legal argument that Clinton, Bush II, and Obama are as strongly barred from the office of Vice President as they are from that of President.

[hector13]

Well that makes sense.

A further, much less likely extension to the question would be a former president being elected as Speaker of the House, and then both POTUS and VP standing aside. I’m not sure if legalese goes far enough down that rabbit hole, but eh it’s late and it would lead to interesting constitutional crises if it were ever to happen.

[Lord Shonus]

That's a situation that's incredibly unlikely to arise for a host of reasons*, but if it were to crop up most of the two-termers we've had would simply step down from the position. Most people that get that far in politics aren't egotistical enough to deliberately crash the system.

*The two biggest ones are prestige and the health of the party. When it comes to major elected office, the level of status is generally State lawmaker, US Representative, State Governor, US Senator, President, Elder Statesman, SCOTUS. Going from POTUS to Representative would be a huge demotion. In a less egotistical sense, that pipeline is where you develop the next generation of party leaders. You need rookies in the House to eventually take those governorships and Senate seats. Dropping a termed-out President in those roles would jeopardize the stream.

[Loud Whispers]

There's a non-zero chance that he doesn't make it out of this year. He seems like he's trying to offend as many people as possible, and is part of a community that has a reputation for settling beef with bullets.

Reminds me of that one clip floating around where one of Kanye's friends is desperately trying to do damage control, saying "I'd just like to say all black people, all jewish people, Kanye loves you for real tho" and Kanye just interjects loudly NO

Poor guy is trying to bail water out of a sinking ship armed only with a teaspoon

[Starver]

Going from POTUS to Representative would be a huge demotion.

Spoiler: ...could be they'd appear even further down the Line Of Succession (click to show/hide)

[Rolan7]

Well that makes sense.

A further, much less likely extension to the question would be a former president being elected as Speaker of the House, and then both POTUS and VP standing aside. I’m not sure if legalese goes far enough down that rabbit hole, but eh it’s late and it would lead to interesting constitutional crises if it were ever to happen.

You say it's unlikely but then why is my dad so convinced that it's the current MAGA plan? Establishment Republicans simply appoint Trump speaker, then unalive both VPOTUS and POTUS real quick-like, and bam everyone is legally bound to recognize Trump as president again.  checkmate liberals

Also every bit of civil unrest in a classically-liberal government, from Basque and Scottish separatists to rail strikes, are Putin ops. like yeah Russia benefits, I guess, but I think some of these people have legitimate complaints (and others did Jan 6).
(and to be fair he largely agrees with me, he just keeps insisting that Putin is materially backing them all to weaken "The West".  Maybe he's not entirely wrong, just... hrm.)

[Lord Shonus]

Trump wouldn't cause a crisis - he had only one term, and there's nothing that technically requires the Speaker to be a US Representative. Practically, there's no way in hell he'd get appointed, and even less chance of both Biden and Harris leaving office even if he did.

[anewaname]

Trump is too self-centered to work in a cooperative role like speaker and everyone knows it. He was able to function in the executive branch only because he was at the top in the authoritarian role.

[Loud Whispers]

Trump is too self-centered to work in a cooperative role like speaker and everyone knows it. He was able to function in the executive branch only because he was at the top in the authoritarian role.

I could see a world where the Republicans hire a Trump wrangler whose job it is to give Trump an important sounding role with lots of publicity but no actual authority, e.g. sure Trump you can be the executive president of the people's public liaison office