TheMightyEthan Posted March 24, 2017 Report Share Posted March 24, 2017 Yeah, Trump's now saying it failed because the Democrats didn't support it. You made no effort to write a bill that they might support, nor did you make any effort to convince them to support it. Your party has enough votes in both houses to pass it without a single Democratic vote in support. It is not their fault you can't even deal with your own party. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted March 24, 2017 Report Share Posted March 24, 2017 It's as if 7 years of scorched-earth political tactics didn't serve the GOP well when it comes to governing. It's also worth noting that the GOP House i more ideologically split than the Dem House was, or the Dem caucus is. I mean, you have a good number of far-right burn-it-all-down Republicans in the Freedom Caucus and you also have a number of old-school Republicans who actually think government has a role to play and that it ought to work to better the lives of Americans beyond throwing everything to the 'free' market. On the other hand, there are no Dems who demand the nationalization of all private enterprise; the caucus may disagree about where, how and when government intervention is best put to use, but there's no extreme leftwingers in Congress. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted March 24, 2017 Report Share Posted March 24, 2017 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mal Posted March 24, 2017 Report Share Posted March 24, 2017 It was a fun thing to learn about with my Uber driver (he tuned in just for this news) this afternoon (I only heard about them trying to have a vote this morning...). We both had a really good laugh. It may be our national government but shit is just hilarious at this point because: They've pulled the bill because there aren't enough votes to pass it, despite the fact that they have the presidency and majorities in both houses. Republicans have just proved they are incapable of governing. After a certain point, you just have to enjoy Hell. Especially so when the opposition is suffering in Hell with you. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted April 6, 2017 Report Share Posted April 6, 2017 Trump being interviewed on air force one today while the Rogue One scene in which Vader is unveiled plays. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted April 11, 2017 Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 So United Airlines eh? Pretty fucking gross. I'd guess only people pleased with it are Pepsi. You're gonna need a hell of a..fuck I forget their name. Those specialist PR teams that deal with like..you just crushed a kid under your sign on live TV type PR guys. Airlines get pretty bad rep when they go and kick off someone of colour because another passenger is like "they're a terrorist writing terrorist plans on their laptop" and it turns out their a maths professor writing formula. Beating up a doctor and dragging him off the flight because you overbooked and want to put your staff on in their place is a terrriibbbllle look. I'll be interested to see the outcome, I'd say not only does he have a pretty good case against them but other passengers too for emotional trauma. In more political news, it seems more info coming out that Trump is probably at least partially illiterate. Which tbh isn't a huge surprise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted April 11, 2017 Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 Yeah, the United thing is horrible, and comes hot on the heels of their last PR disaster with the girls in leggings (one of whom was 10) getting denied boarding because they weren't "appropriately dressed." The Trump thing explains why he insists his daily briefings be kept to no more than a page, and strongly prefers they be delivered orally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mal Posted April 11, 2017 Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 Technically the passenger was trespassing once UA decided that he needs to be off the plane. From what I understand, in the court of law UA could win on that count assuming that rule/regulation is left intact, so that's nice for UA. On everything else, UA better be prepared to eat shit. Additionally, the cops should be in hot water for at least unreasonable force. I've read that they kind of got thrown under the bus by Chicago PD. And I'm not surprised by Trump's senility. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted April 11, 2017 Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 This is a great case of where the airline acted within its legal obligations yet still manages to totally be in the wrong. Yes, the randomly-selected passenger signed a contract of carriage and further did not obey orders from flight crew or law enforcement. But that flight crew and law enforcement were ordering him off in the first place is completely fucked up. The laws allow and encourage corporations and their employees to act like sociopaths. In this case, the low maximum obligation for a carrier to reimburse an involuntarily-bumped passenger created an incentive for the private corporation to utilize the state's monopoly on the use of violence to force a customer off the plane. If the there were no limit on the obligation to repay, the airline would have (and should have anyway) kept upping their bid until enough people accepted the price. The bloodless cost analysis embodied by the reimbursement regulations does not factor in the major inconvenience cost to the bumped passenger or other, ancillary costs incurred by bumped passengers (missing out on family visits, missing out on work, canceled hotels at the destination, and so on). The most efficient and, incidentally, capitalist way to get folks to comply with involuntary bumping is not to make passengers feel powerless before the violence of the state or the corporate machinery of the airline, but to allow the passengers to bid on what they would accept in exchange for being bumped. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted April 11, 2017 Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 Supposedly one passenger offered to switch flights for $1600, and the manager laughed at him. Minor point of clarification: they can involuntarily bump you, and if they are able to get you to your destination within one hour of your originally scheduled arrival then they don't have to compensate you; within 2 hours and they have to pay you twice the cost of the ticket, up to a max of $675; more than two hours and they have to pay you 4 times the cost of the ticket, up to a max of $1350. They are also required to give you a pamphlet explaining these requirements when they bump you. So the maximum isn't just the cost of the ticket, but I agree with the general point that there shouldn't be a max at all, they should have to keep offering more money until somebody takes it. And regardless of legal requirements, doing so would have saved them a massive PR shitstorm that is likely costing them more than $1600. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted April 11, 2017 Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 Yes. Those limits encourage the airline to not offer anything more and to call in the cops to kick off any passengers who won't take the offer. Management likely does not give the airline customer service reps the authority to offer more than the legal obligation, which is what led to this mess. I apologize for not including the DOT regulatory maximum reimbursement amounts, but they are low and not concomitant with what getting bumped is actually worth to a passenger. I think as part of your check in you should be allowed to set a reserve price (and maybe a small set of terms; price if your delay is under X hours, a different price if it's over x hours, a different price if they refund your ticket versus putting you on a new flight, whether all tickets bought together would have to be bumped together, etc.) at which the airline can in effect buy your seat back. If they accept your offer, your ticket is gone and you get the payout you agreed to in advance. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mal Posted April 11, 2017 Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 Can the refund be more if you're seated on the plane? It'd be a really good incentive for the airline to get all their ducks in a row. The customer service side of all this is that the bumping happened within the plane which should not happen (it shouldn't be happening at all...). It's a reasonable assumption that you're good to go once you're seated even if you have the cheapest ticket on the plane. I should add that the manager (the same one that laughed at the $1600 highballing offer) told this to the passenger as the reason for him being chosen. That would piss off anybody. God damn is this irritating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted April 11, 2017 Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 I'd say it's a bit disingenuous to say he was "trespassing". He hadn't snuck on board through the wheels like some kind of android hobbit. He'd bought a ticket, he'd been boarded. United then decided they wanted to clear some seats for their staff, offered what I'm to understand is kinda lowball figures and when that didn't shift people decided to "randomly" pick people to kick off. Guy refused to "volunteer" (word of the day folks) and was beaten and dragged off the plane. They then lost a crap ton off their stocks. far in excess of not only the ticket, but the cost of the entire plane. It would have cost them less to offer him a plane in return for bumping him off the flight than the losses the company has taken for kicking him off how they did. The CEO I'd say is the one to nail for that given it's his absolutely shitty PR that did it. Could have (sorta) saved face and threw his employees under the bus, but he stuck by his guns and fucked over the entire company, and that's before any court case goes. Also I imagine there might be a push for laws to stop airplanes overbooking their flights. It's kinda having your cake and eating it. You're essentially selling futures, and if you fuck up and don't have the supply you don't beat up your customers, you compensate them well for your total fuck up. Also kinda endemic of the super violent police that america is currently breeding. Oh and digging into the guys past is not a good look for some reporters right now, as if it has any bearing. Dude had his medical license revoked, he wasn't beaten on the plane for some outstanding warrant or what not. And in other news because people like to one-up each other at the moment with fuck ups Sean Spicer has said that Hitler didn't use chemical weapons on his own countrymen like Assad is doing. For those not entirely clued up on C20th history, he gassed millions of Germans. So either Spicer is completely clueless of a basic historical fact and yet a political press officer Denying Hitler used chemical weapons That the Jews and gays and political dissidents weren't really "Germans" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mal Posted April 11, 2017 Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 "Holocaust centers". Sean, are you fucking serious? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mal Posted April 24, 2017 Report Share Posted April 24, 2017 Sums up my feelings. Seriously, Jared is a question mark. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted April 28, 2017 Report Share Posted April 28, 2017 "Exclusive: Trump says he thought being president would be easier than his old life"http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-100days-idUSKBN17U0CA God, if this is harder than his old life I wonder how often he used to golf previously. Oh on the UA front the doctor has won an undisclosed settlement. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39739737 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted April 28, 2017 Report Share Posted April 28, 2017 4 hours ago, deanbmmv said: "Exclusive: Trump says he thought being president would be easier than his old life"http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-100days-idUSKBN17U0CA God, if this is harder than his old life I wonder how often he used to golf previously. How anyone can possibly still believe he knows what he's doing is beyond me at this point. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mal Posted May 9, 2017 Report Share Posted May 9, 2017 FBI Director James Comey has been fired. After (I) getting swooned by Sally Yates for doing her job, something that House Republicans can't seem to do, we get the above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted May 10, 2017 Report Share Posted May 10, 2017 He found out he was fired from the TV playing at a conference he was giving. But yeah, it'll totally remove any suspicion of wrong doing involving Trump and Russia if he gets rid of the head of the FBI during the investigation. (I mean, it's pretty much the same thinking stupid people had of "kill Osama and the terrorism stops") Only way the investigation would stop is either Trump blatantly installs his own guy in at the top which'd be extremely suspect or he gets rid of the FBI altogether. Also the guy that recommending Comey be gotten rid of has actively lied about meetings with Russian officials. Comey did fuck up with regards to his handling of the email inquiry and I'd say it defo had an impact on the election result. But even Nixon didn't fire the director of the FBI during watergate scandal (or so the Nixon Library has been tweeting about :P). Also saying it's due to his handling of the emails is a lie that even an idiot could see through. Trump had been praising it for ages, and recently been complaining about the ongoing investigation into ties with Russia. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted May 10, 2017 Report Share Posted May 10, 2017 Nixon didn't fire the FBI director because the FBI wasn't investigating him, there was a special prosecutor. Nixon wanted to fire the special prosecutor but couldn't, because the special prosecutor is independent of the president (for obvious reasons). Instead, Nixon ordered the Attorney General to fire the special prosecutor. The Attorney General refused. Nixon then fired the Attorney General and ordered the Deputy Attorney General to fire the special prosecutor. The DAG also refused, so Nixon fired him too. The Solicitor General then became the Acting Attorney General, and obeyed the order to fire the special prosecutor. See the Saturday Night Massacre. So yes, it's true that Nixon never fired the FBI director, but what Nixon did was even worse (if we're comparing degrees of obstruction of justice). 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted May 11, 2017 Report Share Posted May 11, 2017 You have to read this in batches because otherwise your brain starts dribbling out of your brain http://www.economist.com/Trumptranscript Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted May 11, 2017 Report Share Posted May 11, 2017 I can't ever read transcripts of anything Trump says. Like, his comments are always so rambling and incoherent that the only way you can actually derive any meaning from them is to hear him say them with full inflection and everything. If you strip that information out and present it as pure text it's always completely incomprehensible. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted May 12, 2017 Report Share Posted May 12, 2017 Yeah, he's worse than Sarah Palin. Reading Trump transcripts is mind-numbing and way confusing. And I say that as someone who has read a ton of transcripts of testimony in my current work, and transcripts of interviews and focus groups in my former career. It is goddamned rare I encounter anything as nonsensical as what Trump says. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted May 12, 2017 Report Share Posted May 12, 2017 I've read court transcripts of 4 people all talking over each other that are more easily deciphered than anything Trump says. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted May 12, 2017 Report Share Posted May 12, 2017 My issue with reading Trump transcripts is it reminds me too much of when my boss would be chatting with potential (or even current, somehow) clients. "It'll have all the HTMLs and it'll be much better than like Amazon and...oh you want it to have whatsapp yeah we can put that on there." Also turns out in the above transcript he says health insurance is $15/mo 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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