Jim Webb

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Jim Webb (1946–) is an American politician, previously Republican and since 2006 a Democrat, serving from 2007 to 2013 as senator for the state of Virginia.

Do not fuck with this man. He makes the laws. He can break them.

Do not fuck with Jim Webb. This guy makes Chuck Norris look like a wimp. Seriously. This is the guy who brought a loaded gun with him to the United States Senate, and did not think a damn thing of it.[1]

Senator

Jim Webb was the senior Senator from Virginia, a seat he won in 2006 from George "Macaca" Allen, and refused to run for re-election in 2012, being succeeded by former Governor Tim Kaine. He is a former Republican who was so sickened by the Iraq War, among other things, that he became a Democrat and ran for the Senate. His major previous political experience was as Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan. On July 2, 2015, he announced his presidential campaign on the Democratic Party ticket.[2] Unfortunately for the one guy with a "Webb 2016" shirt, he quickly dropped out. He participated in one debate, where he spent most of his speaking time complaining that he didn't have enough time to speak. Thanks, Jim. Also, he kicked a lot of ass in Vietnam.

Author

Webb is also an author, mostly of novels about the Vietnam War, and one non-fiction book about the history of Scots-Irish immigrants to America. Many have said that his books tend to glorify violence for violence's sake. He is also known for having said some really sexist things in the past, though he has apologised for them and definitely kept any such opinions to himself recently.

Secretary of Defense?

Following the "retirement" of Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Webb has been floated to take this position under Donald Trump.[3] Given his dovish stance on the Iraq War, this could be a somewhat positive development if it goes through.

Opinion on drugs

Webb should get a gold star for rationality in one field: drug sentencing. He held hearings (that almost no one else attended) on the problems of mandatory minimum sentences, and began to push his colleagues to make changes to the drug laws so that they better fit with empirical reality. Nothing came of this, but he is still trying.

gollark: I bet a few silly, silly people decided that they wanted some specific gender-neutral pronoun and not just a generic one.

gollark: I think they should stop with the madness and just let people use gender-neutral stuff like "they".

gollark: Conspicuously refer to them by their chosen pronoun *every sentence*.

gollark: Oh yes, it would be great.

gollark: I mean, they'll survive, but a lot of moderators have left.

References

Webb Aide Tried To Take Gun Into Senate Building, Capitol Police Say, Washington Post
Haberman, Maggie. Jim Webb Announces Democratic Bid for Presidency. The New York Times. 2 July 2015. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/us/politics/jim-webb-defense-secretary.html

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[1] Webb Aide Tried To Take Gun Into Senate Building, Capitol Police Say, Washington Post

[2] Haberman, Maggie. Jim Webb Announces Democratic Bid for Presidency. The New York Times. 2 July 2015. Retrieved 29 July 2015.

[3] ttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/us/politics/jim-webb-defense-secretary.html