In an interview he addresses why he's retiring, opposed to staying.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2017/10/24/why-senator-jeff-flake-says-he-wont-run-drops-out-race-trump-gop-politics/795497001/

It's a good speech. Not sure I'd call it "eloquent" though... for someone who basically makes their living arguing, he's not a great public speaker.

Also, this is his retirement speech?
If you truly believe what you're saying, don't retire; do something about it!

Switch sides, or work to combat the worst excesses of your own party.

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My story: In 2001 I broke my back. I was started on vicodin and eventually Norco to minimize the Tylenol intake, at one point prescribed up to 8 Norco a day (I never took that many). This continued for 15 years, with my pain getting worse, until my doctor retired. My new doctor would not prescribe opioids at all, and put me on naproxen, which I was certain wouldn't cut it. To my surprise, it did, and soon my pain levels were incredibly lower with no medication (except marijuana) than they had been on up to 4 Norco a day. I still have pain, but averaging 2-3/10 instead of 4-8/10 (where 0 is no pain and 10 is passing out).

I now think I had opioid induced hypersensitivity, and that my meds caused most of my pain. I have to wonder how many others are still in that boat, playing addiction roulette and causing themselves pain.

I could probably work in a different field if the employer was willing to make certain exemptions for my issues. Realistically, I would have a very hard time dealing with stress and some of my meds would make working difficult (or even getting to work in some cases). Working in a high stress field like I was would be nigh impossible.

Thankfully, I have been in the right place at the right time (for the most part, in my career. I've worked for quite a few big-name tech companies at their height and I was always one of those people who took judicious advantage of employee stock options, so while not rich in any way, I am comfortably well off enough to basically 'retire' early. My wife works a job she loves, we own our home, and we decided against having kids a long time ago, so we are doing fine.

Hmmmm...but it's pretty exclusively a right wing position that ANY regulation on firearms is inconceivable, and Republicans exclusively are responsible for those modifications, like bump stocks, something he used to make at least one gun rapid fire, being legal. They also allowed the assault weapons ban to expire, allowing him to legally purchase up to 40 easily converted military style rifles. In fact, they were about to make silencers much easier to get, which would have increased the mayhem by giving him longer to shoot before people realized what was happening, but held back because of the massacre.

....soooooo...you do have to defend the availability of automatic guns, because you vote for and support the people that keep them easily available and want to make it easier....assuming you aren't really Dimitri from Moscow.

Not much known about him yet, not political, not religious, just a rich retired gambler according to his family.

Fired or retired. He's doing one of them it seems. http://www.ajc.com/news/local/cobb-officer-who-said-only-shoot-black-people-says-retire/8B3H64z17G9WrybtMj92tI/

6/10 polled said they believe they should remain, a tiny bit different from wanting them standing, but surprising none the less.
So was this quote from Robert E Lee denouncing civil war monuments....

“I think it wiser,” the retired military leader wrote about a proposed Gettysburg memorial in 1869, “…not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/robert-e-lee-opposed-confederate-monuments/

that's interesting and makes a lot of sense especially if McCain retires which it seems he should (for health reasons); I kind of want to believe that the health problem is what caused him to change his mind; not that his mind was fuckered up, but that taking away insurance from millions could have huge consequences

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Fascinating. I can't help but feel a bit sad for the man. But there are some aspects of his testimony that leave me scratching my head:

"[T]he administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple."

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/08/full-text-james-comey-trump-russia-testimony-239295

"Yet there is a growing consensus that Comey has wielded the powers of the directorship more aggressively than anyone since Hoover—to the consternation, and even anger, of some of his colleagues."

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/james-comey-fbi-accountability-214234

"Mr. Comey got so many calls from former agents and others after he decided this summer not to pursue charges that he had to change his phone number posted online. And at a recent meeting with retired agents, he was still fielding tough questions about the decision."

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/29/us/politics/fbi-clinton-emails-james-comey.html

I think it's fair to say that Comey helped to create a "turbulent" atmosphere at the FBI during the past year, one probably not matched since the firing of William Sessions in 1993.

I wish someone had thought to ask him what he'd imagine the results of the "hopes, loyalty and leaks" would have been if he hadn't been fired.

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Why spam a commercial for a corporate event from 2014? Bots with narrow tasks should have retirement clauses so they are not forced to suffer existence.

*ban.