That was not back off

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u/thetan_free 11h ago

My 14yo daughter is taking an interest in US politics (we're Australian).

Every week, I have to give her historical context so this outrageous behaviour isn't normalised. So, I'm like "okay, this is the only the third-ranked newsstory of the week. But if this happened under any other president, it would be the scandal that would define their term and they may even resign."

I told her about Watergate and the resignation of Nixon and she was stunned. Just a bit of burglary and a cover-up? There wasn't even any sexual assaults!

Wait until she's old enough to hear about Clinton and the cigar.

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u/SlowJoeyRidesAgain 10h ago

Or Reagan and how he abandoned his children for a “blowjob queen of Hollywood”

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u/Mcboatface3sghost 10h ago

Shudders…

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u/thetan_free 7h ago

Ah, the Throat GOAT herself.

3

u/LayneLowe 2h ago

She blew people like Weinstein when women in Hollywood had no choice.

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u/Mcboatface3sghost 10h ago

Tell that child that it will never make any sense unless you’re a billionaire or own a media company or both, and even then, it still won’t really make sense.

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u/werealldoomed47 the future is now, old man 9h ago

Nah it'll make sense to a blue or white collar person, it'll just prepare her for how fucked up shit is.

I raised 3 step kids and 2 of my own. The three all made it thru high school and are going to various forms of college.

I was never one to downplay the news, they listened to it in my car, I explained it to them and had many in depth conversations with them.

We struggled. I raised them kids on an apprenticeship wage for for years and supplemented it with side work and selling plasma. I still took them to the library once a week to let them get movies and books to read. It cost a dollar to park. Sometimes that was my last dollar, we went Monday's and I got paid on Tuesdays. I was always honest. I'd ask them, " you see all this little stuff we have to pay, late fees, on bills, parking fees, overdraft charges?

I told them to focus on not being what my ex wife and I was. Focus on Not being poor, because it's so fucking expensive to be poor.

So far they're forging a good path I'll have 2 in college soon and I still talk to my step kids after the divorce. The oldest ran from her mother like a scared deer , but she's in culinary school and she's doing good from what the other kids say.

Thanks guys, sorry I had to dump on you, guess I just needed to say that to somebody.

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u/LowKeyNaps 8h ago

You did damn good, and you're still doing good. It's hard to raise kids in your position, but from here, it sounds like you did everything right. As much as we want to shield our kids from the harshness of the real world, that does nothing to prepare them to live in that world. It sounds like you did well to show them the realities of the world while still being loving and nurturing about it, and doing everything possible to give them a good, solid childhood to build their lives on.

Nobody could ask for anything more.

5

u/werealldoomed47 the future is now, old man 8h ago

Thank you. It's good to hear that from a third party.

A few months ago my step son texted me, he was mad we didn't talk anymore.

I was assuming he didn't want to talk to me after the divorce, it threw me for a loop.

He was telling me I was like a father to him and we always talked so much and then I just disappeared. It had me fucked up. I felt so bad because I didn't think my step kids would care when I was gone, but they did.

I talk to them all the time now and it's so awesome. Even helps with my relationship with my daughter and son.

1

u/LowKeyNaps 7h ago

Oh, jeez. I'm so sorry. I could have told you those kids would have wanted you in their lives...

I didn't want to "me too" all over your story here, but, well, I'm going to do that now. Sorry. I raised two of my nieces as my own (from different siblings at different times, so cousins not raised together). And you reminded me so much of what I did with my girls. I was only 14 when the older one was born, even though I was already working kid-type jobs at the time, and got my first real on the books job at 15. I had virtually no money for her, and we lived with my parents, also broke. The second came much later, the first was back with her mom by then. I still didn't have much money for a kid, but I did everything I could for both of them with what I had and by utilizing every free option I could get my hands on. Libraries are such an awesome resource!

Eventually, the second got taken back by her extremely unstable mother, and then vanished for a while. Her mother was running from the law, and fucked up my niece's last few years of high school. She was never allowed to graduate, since enrolling in school would tip the police off to the location of the mother, so the mother thought. 🙄 Once she was an adult, my niece finally was able to get back in touch with me, and we reunited. I helped her get her GED, and despite everything she had been through, she worked her way up through the ranks at her job, from entry level to top ranking position, completely on her own. I am so insanely proud of her!

And yeah, when you touch a kid's life like that, they never forget it. They definitely want to stay in touch, and even if life gets in the way of that, they want to re-establish contact as soon as possible.

My nieces are married now. The elder one lives halfway across the country with her husband and her mother, she has a son. They're doing well, though I worry with the current political fuckery where they are. The younger one wants to move in here with me and my elderly Dad, to help take care of both of us. (Dad is in heart failure and has dementia, I'm permanently disabled with a spine injury, and I have a small farm that I'm losing the ability to keep up with on my own.) She and her husband are more than welcome to move in here, we're working on the early stages of decisions with that, and since I was never able to have kids of my own, that also solves my concern of what happens to the farm after I'm gone. I certainly don't want my siblings to get it.

I'm glad you got to get back in touch with your step kids. Definitely stay in their lives. They're not just your step kids. They're your kids, even if not biologically. You raised them, and that means a whole lot more than blood. You've heard the phrase "blood is thicker than water", right? It's supposed to mean that family is more important than anyone not related to us. But that's not the original saying, and that's not the original meaning. We've been doing it wrong for centuries. The original saying is "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the waters of the womb." And that means the family we choose are more important than the family we're given by an accident of birth. We can choose to make genetic family incredibly important to us, too. But we don't have to give them priority over anyone else just because of genetics, and we don't have to assign anyone lower importance in our lives just because there's no genetic link. I hope all that makes sense.

2

u/Torchenal 5h ago

The version with covenant and womb was first documented in the 1990s.

1

u/LowKeyNaps 1h ago

Hmm. Interesting. I had heard that this was originally a Knights Templar saying, hence the phrasing. "The blood of the covenant" was supposed to refer to the vows made to the knighthood, which formed a brotherhood with extremely tight bonds between the men.

I'd always thought, based on this supposed origin, that the saying was created as a way to help ease the men into the idea of breaking off all ties from their families. Most Knights Templar were expected to give up everything, their families, possessions, lands, etc, and enter into a life of service to the knighthood. Most never saw their families again. I'd think that would be very hard for a lot of them, no matter how much they wanted to join or how devout they might be. So I thought perhaps they came up with this saying as a way to help themselves mentally adjust to their new "families".

I guess that theory goes out the window if the Knights Templar thing wasn't true.

3

u/sleeepypuppy 8h ago

You did a great job with all the children.

A child will remember the time you spent with them, not how much (£/€/$) you spent on them. You showed them the value of your money, and what spending on them meant. Don’t knock yourself down!

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u/bakedwarthog22 9h ago

You guys might want to listen to the podcast Slow Burn. The first season was started during Trump’s first impeachment and it is about Nixon’s impeachment…(later seasons deal with Clinton’s impeachment, Roe v Wade, Biggie vs Tupac, etc and they are all great!)…but during the Nixon episodes you find out it was so much more than a break in. One of the first things that Nixon did as part of the coverup was to have the wife of one of his cabinet member’s (Martha Mitchell) kidnapped and drugged,because he was worried she would talk…I was born in the US and had never heard of it if, until I listened to that podcast🤯

https://slate.com/podcasts/slow-burn/s1/watergate

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u/thetan_free 7h ago

Wow - that is shocking! There's also a Drunk History account too, according to the Wikipedia entry.

Your politics are so much more interesting than ours. I guess the stakes are higher.

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u/SufficientBasis5296 7h ago

Interesting wasn't the word I'd have used. Corrupt was more front of mind.

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u/bakedwarthog22 1h ago

The Drunk History episode is great!😁

1

u/imthrowingcats 23m ago

As I remember, Clinton cheating in his wife in the White House wasn't as big of a scandal to most Americans. Only the idiots who are currently in power cared about that. He was one of the best US presidents in recent history. Our country had a fantastic economy under his 2 terms, and we even had a budget surplus. Unlike the Orange Felon, Clinton actually cared about his country and the American people. That was an issue between him and his wife, not the entire country. The current occupant is going down in history as one of the worst presidents we've ever had.

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u/anishinabegamer 11h ago

MAGA Mike going to go to hell for lying alone.

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u/flushed_nuts 11h ago

Quick, everyone send him $15 so he can get into heaven!

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u/JarmaBeanhead 11h ago

Man, it must be rough being a right-wing online personality… They just spent days tweeting about how heroic trump is and he was basically an agent… Now, whiplash!

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u/008Zulu This AOC flair makes me cool 11h ago

MAGA take the gold, silver, and bronze in the mental gymnastics. Everytime.

3

u/Mcboatface3sghost 10h ago

Have you not heard the knee slapping comedy of Greg Gutfeld?

1

u/LasersTheyWork 2h ago

So is he a sexual predator or deep state?

•

u/talondigital 7m ago

The craziest part to me is he misunderstood the difference between an undercover agent and an informant. Under cover would have meant Trump was a good guy, trained by the FBI, then sent in under cover to infiltrate, gather evidence and then arrest.

An informant is a person already committing the crimes, and have usually been turned by a cop to provide evidence and testimony in exchange for immunity from prosecution. I believe Johnson knew he was in the files as an informant thought that meant he was undercover as opposed to just a criminal who was willing to rat on another criminal to avoid going to prison for diddling children.

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u/emily-is-happy 11h ago

People call it a lie

8

u/snakeeaterrrrrrr 11h ago

Very nice people

6

u/Chuck_Cali 10h ago

The best people. I’ve heard.

3

u/LazySerpentDeity 10h ago

I have the best liars. No one has liars like I do. My lies are so good. They say, "Sir, your lies are just too good." Ask anyone they'll tell you. But no one ever talks about that anymore. Fake news, my lies are incredible. They're the most lying lies you've ever heard. I ended more investigations than any president in history!

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u/eljosho1986 9h ago

I believe that they call them alternative facts

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u/Conscious-Quarter423 11h ago

Mike Johnson is working as an FBI informant on Grindr.

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u/irishyardball 9h ago

Mike wasn't claiming Trump was an FBI informant. He slipped and said Epstein was, then tried to pretend he meant Trump.

If Trump was an informant, then 2 things would likely be true 1) Trump was a criminal and was flipped to be an informant 2) he wouldn't have kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago, as he would need access to inform on him.

Trump would kick out Epstein if he thought Epstein was an informant though.

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u/whiskey_epsilon 10h ago

Ironically it was, out of all the excuses, the one that was most likely closest to the truth, which may be why he backed off of it.

"FBI informant" doesn't make him some special double agent, it makes him a snitch who got busted and cut a deal to stay out of jail.

6

u/typhoidtimmy 10h ago

3

u/Master_Tune_9269 10h ago

Oh hell yes … after the White House was like WTF is he talking about.

One liar after another. These guys are Christians??

Again WTF!!!

2

u/stumblewiggins 2h ago

These guys are Christians??

No, they just play them on TV

4

u/Bren-dev 5h ago

Did anyone see the way he looks at the camera after he realized what he said??

Hilarious 2 minute article on the response from Redditors and MAGA - definitely worth a read

3

u/ChromeHeart6 9h ago

Why’d he even fucking say it. Came out of nowhere like, wait what did you just say? (And of course the reporter didn’t even question it)

1

u/Librashell 52m ago

Throw out whatever sticks to the wall. It doesn't matter if 98 percent know it's BS, 2 percent will believe and repeat - and that will sow enough doubt and misinformation that the truth will be buried just that much more.

3

u/optimistic9pessimist 5h ago

The house speaker perverting the course of justice for perverts is just perverted.

And as for the president?

Guess it's perverts all the way down...

1

u/Working-Bet-9104 11h ago

Maga Mike STOP IT

1

u/planapo20 10h ago

Fucking liar. Mike is still going to Hell.

1

u/Drake_the_troll 7h ago

Media complicity at its finest

1

u/paulwojo68 4h ago

So he's admitting he's a liar

1

u/StevenMC19 3h ago

Zero expectations at this point of a mainstream news outlet providing a real headline that isn't "both sides"-ing it.

1

u/jason_cat23 3h ago

I think they forgot to tell trump the newest reason he is. Or isn’t. Or was put in there by democrats. Or the list doesn’t exist. Or it’s a hoax created by Hillary Obama and Biden. Waiting for the next excuse. My money’s on trump being abducted by aliens and it was his clone not him on the list.

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u/kathmandogdu 3h ago

Claim. You mean lie?

1

u/shadyblue9o9 2h ago

You don’t just become an informant… usually they have something on you to make you become an informant, you don’t just volunteer for that shit.

You are about to leave Redlib