Why is everyone so mean?? US Politics: September 2022

There's still the handful of Trumpers on my local paper's comments section sure that the Durham report is going to deliver some huge bombshell, any day now. They're worse than Mike Lindell.

hmmmm.

Rep. Ted Budd, NC's Republican Senate nominee, is cosponsoring Sen. Graham's abortion ban.

That's in contrast to GOP Senate candidates in some other tight races distancing themselves from the 15-week national ban.

— Natalie Allison (@natalie_allison) September 14, 2022

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/senate/north-carolina/

The month is living up to the thread title in disgusting ways.

https://vineyardgazette.com/news/2022/09/14/planeload-venezuelan-refugees-arrive-marthas-vineyard-airport

DeSantis is apparently taking credit for this, even though the initial report says the plane is from Texas. Lots of confusion. Regardless, somebody sent a planeload of human beings to Martha's Vineyard as a political stunt.

Sorry to post a corporate Twitter account but this is pretty funny

If you still have a phone, get a free breakfast biscuit in our app for My Rewards members: https://t.co/rk896CKmpc https://t.co/loaIAFVViS

— Hardee’s (@Hardees) September 14, 2022

i just tried to heart that tweet here on ilx

ron desantis hasn't been in national news yet this week, so he decided to fly migrants from TX to martha's vineyard because he thinks that means owning the libs. what a horrible piece of shit he is

i hope one day the body of ron desantis can be used by someone he's never heard of to score political points for the cruelest team of anti-humans that isn't from a comic book

Good morning!

NEW on DeSantis' vile stunt of flying migrants to Martha's Vineyard:

Migrants say they started in San Antonio, official tells me, lured by promise of work papers.

No heads up given, official says.

Why is a Florida gov flying migrants from Tex to Mass?https://t.co/z0Qu0Ix8iD

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) September 15, 2022

On his birthday, by the way

According to The Martha’s Vineyard Times, local officials at one point said they believed planes were coming from Texas, Florida and Alabama. “Some of them were told lies … they were told they would receive housing and jobs immediately upon arrival,” Rep. Dylan Fernandes, D-Falmouth, told the Times. Fernandez joined the relief effort in Martha’s Vineyard.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article265836906.html#storylink=cpy

Are there any details on the tentative rail agreement? All I saw was Biden saying they get some sick days now but not like... how many.

xp

https://i.imgur.com/B9MrajE.png

i'm seeing that the agreement was rejected? xp

Solidarity with railroad @MachinistsUnion workers who soundly rejected their TA. Contrary to rail carriers narrative, no rank and file vote has approved the garbage PEB contract recommendation. pic.twitter.com/iZe4jbhVSj

— Ross Grooters (@RossGrooters) September 14, 2022

There was another tentative agreement announced this morning (unless Biden's just repeating the rejected one for some reason?)

Tune in as I deliver remarks on the railway labor agreement. https://t.co/roFU8Ckpv5

— President Biden (@POTUS) September 15, 2022

There may be details here but I can't listen to Joe speak for more than 15 seconds without getting depressed.

how is the shit that DeSantis is pulling right now not incredibly illegal

it's right there in the governor's code of laws, section 4, line 14: a governor can traffic migrants located in another state to another state of the governor's choosing, so long as they lie to them as they do it and treat them like property

but remember, govenror's code of laws chapter 4: it's only allowed if they get to go on television and be rewarded by people who have abandoned shame

From the WaPo:

If the contract is ratified, the agreement by the two largest railroad unions and railway carriers guarantees voluntary assigned days off and a single additional paid day off. Workers also can take time off for routine doctor’s appointments without being penalized, and would not lose attendance points for hospitalizations and surgical procedures, according to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.

The deal also includes the biggest wage increases for railroad workers in more than four decades. They will receive a 24 percent pay increase by 2024, including an immediate 14 percent raise; $1,000 annual bonuses over five years; and no increases to healthcare copays and deductibles.

Despite the breakthrough, critical questions remained. None of the parties involved in the talks has confirmed the number of unpaid sick days for which workers will be eligible, and details about other provisions in the agreement remained unclear. The reaction of rank-and-file union membership to the deal is also unclear.

and of course:

Congressional Republicans on Wednesday advanced legislation to force workers to accept those terms, making clear they would direct blame at the president should the impasse lead to a strike. Some moderate Democrats had begun to consider whether they should back the GOP approach to end the standoff.

b-b-but ben shapiro called it a "sweetheart deal"

Friend who works for the railroads when asked if they'll be okay: "my savings will last longer than the rest of the economy if we strike"

— culture war denialist (@shwiffles) September 15, 2022

my 7 year old son loves trains. every time one passes by he gets really excited. why won't someone think of the real victims here

The hobos

From a former hobo who knows a lot of rails, I can honestly say that the depths of corruption and lack of regard for their workers or any human lives is par for the course with rail companies. The execs at these companies have succeeded in stripping so many safety measures from the infrastructure that it blows my mind that there aren’t more accidents all the time.

I mean, they legit want (and in some cases have made mandatory) 1-person crews. One person as engineer, brakeman, and lineman. Sometimes operating hundreds of thousands of tons of machinery going very fast through dense, crowded areas. Totally bonkers

The NYT:

Negotiations in which the Biden administration took an active role produced a tentative contract deal announced early Thursday. The agreement included a significant pay increase for the workers, whose base wages typically start at around $50,000 and top out around $100,000, excluding overtime and benefits. But scheduling was the sticking point.

Unions complained that to manage a shortfall of employees, the carriers effectively forced their members to remain on call for days and sometimes weeks at a time, partly through the use of strict attendance policies that could lead to disciplinary action or even firing. They said the policies pushed workers to the limits of their physical and mental health.

“Every facet of your life is dictated by this job,” said Gabe Christenson, who until this year worked as a conductor for a large freight rail carrier. “There’s no way to get away from it.”

To table's point.

The renewed spotlight on rail companies as villains feels very in keeping with our Robber Baron Redux era.

a good friend of mine works for the railroad and yeah that aspect of it fuckin sucks. we can't really go anywhere nor can he be out too late, any day of the week. for like the last decade

Why don't they just do speed like truckers?

it's not like anything has fundamentally changed since the original one. xxp

They do! Still not safe tho

Longer story: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/09/15/politics/biden-white-house-railroad-strike/index.html

how is the shit that DeSantis is pulling right now not incredibly illegal

I mean, we live in an era where there seem to be almost zero consequences for anything, but the fact that multiple governors can just straight up kidnap people by the bus and planeload and force them to migrate across the country with just a strong "tut tut" in response makes me even more hopeless about this dystopian hellhole.

why did the fact that these railroad workers get 30 days off year (i.e. no weekends) become an issue now? was it a recent change?

the circumstances described here seem untenable https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjkzbq/28-freight-rail-workers-tell-us-what-they-want-you-to-know-about-their-lives so... were they better in the past? or have they been like this for decades, in which case what lead them to feel like they could fight back now?

BNSF has the most draconian policies on attendance (30 points before suspensions and you could get docked 25 for missing one day potentially) and they were only instituted recently. The top level rails have also cut something like 40k jobs in the last 7 years (leading to the attendance policy).

The little city I live in (pop 7000) is very much a railroad town, created in 1887 by a railroad because it's halfway btw B'ham and Memphis. Line currently owned by BNSF. Part of me wants/wanted a brief strike so I could see this conservative area tie itself in knots over who to support.

oh man, you should threaten to blow up the railroad tracks. you're sitting on a strait of hormuz, it's time to capitalize

is what many people are saying, not me though

Senate delays same-sex marriage vote until after midterms

The Senate won’t vote on protecting same-sex marriage until after the midterm elections, said the bill’s chief sponsor, Tammy Baldwin.

“I’m still very confident that they bill will pass but we will be taking the bill up later, after the election. We will be putting out a joint statement,” the Wisconsin senator said after a Democratic caucus lunch.

Democrats had planned to hold a vote as soon as Monday, though it was unclear if there would be 10 Republican votes in support of the same-sex marriage bill. Several Republicans said this week that the measure had a much better chance to pass after the election.

“We should have a vote when you’ve got the votes. They’ll get more votes than November and December than they get on Monday,” said retiring Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who spoke to Baldwin earlier in the day. “If I wanted [it] to pass and I was the majority leader and I wanted to get as many votes as I could possibly get, I’d wait until after the election.”

One of two things will happen in November:

1) Democrats gain seats, but not 60; Republicans filibuster same-sex marriage protection when it comes up
2) Republicans win the Senate majority; abortion and same-sex marriage are both outlawed by Christmas

Either way, this thing is fucking dead.

how is the shit that DeSantis is pulling right now not incredibly illegal

We had an few incidents in CA called 'Greyhound therapy'.. i.e. officials in Nevada were buying bus tickets to San Francisco for their homeless folks: 'Go ahead, they'll take better care of you.' SF flipped out and I think the Reno/Las Vegas folks were forced to apologize. So no, it's not legal.

Some hard truths here

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/09/trump-judge-aileen-cannon-court-reform.html

It's super frustrating because there are still at this very minute tons of legal professionals pushing out endless takes about "this is not how things work" and well I have news for you...

So we're just gonna let them change the subject from abortion to immigration?

(NB I form my view of the world via my Twitter feed)

It's the GOP's go-to topic when things aren't going well for them

Cue THE CARAVANS

I'm not sure I agree with this response to the same-sex marriage farrago, but it's something.

The original draft of this sentence read, "'They’ll get more votes in November and December than they’ll get on Monday,' GOP Senator Roy Blunt told reporters, managing not to laugh as they pretended to believe him."

I don't know how good Yougov polls are but doin' stuff seems to be a successful move.

This is wild @chrislhayes pic.twitter.com/MihOt9Ozyq

— Matt Hodges (@hodgesmr) September 16, 2022