(06-16-2017 07:41 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(06-16-2017 07:34 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  There was a pretty moving segment on the News Hour with Barton and his Dem counterpart. I am not a Joe Barton fan politically, but man I felt for him as a human being. He was there with his two sons.
I'd like to think Congress is serious about improving the tone, but its going to take a lot.
I don't want to get into a scorekeeping argument with OO about heated rhetoric, but I'll just point out that Hillary was repeatedly called a traitor during the campaign. I heard numerous calls for her to be "put before a firing squad" or "hanging from a rope". Not to mention multiple chants of "lock her up!" at the Republican convention. And then Ted Nugent who made a comment alluding to raping her with his shotgun. And then was invited to the White House. I'm not aware of any Democratic Senate candidates talking about "Second Amendment solutions" or Democratic Presidential candidates who said if their opponent won "the second amendment people could take care of her". Etc.
I could go on and on.
Things have become too tribal. Republicans and Democrats have become identities in a way they didn't used to be. Not sure how we dial that back...

I think it starts at the top of government and works its way down.

I may have mentioned this before, but as a CPA/Attorney, tax law was one area of focus for my practice. For continuing education, I attended tax seminars where we had speakers who were tax lobbyists in DC to give us a heads up for what was coming down the track. A pretty common theme was that something like 85% of both houses of congress could get together and solve most of our problems if only the leadership would quit fanning the flames of partisanship.

As far as the scorekeeping about fault, I think that depends on which side of the aisle you start from. My own opinion is that the personal animosity was way overdone on Bill Clinton and GWB, not quite so heavy on Obama, and out of the ballpark overdone on Trump.