Quote (Black XistenZ @ Oct 15 2021 06:57pm)
Also, can we talk about how Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has been on paternity leave since mid-August (sic!) while the nation crumbles under huge supply chain and transportation issues? Three months of paternity leave is ample to begin with and it's not like he or his husband gave birth and need time to recover from the wounds. And a cabinet post is too important and high-ranking to take extended time off for any reason during a crisis...
Boy, you're just a hypocritical sack of shit, aren't you? What's parental leave in your country? From what I'm reading, you can take up to 3 fucking YEARS and you have the gall to complain about 2 months? Give me a fucking break! As for the Secretary not being there, I'm surprised that you've never heard of the term "deputy" because they were used quite often (as well as "acting" of course) during the Trump administration. The deputy's job is LITERALLY to step in during an absence...that's why we have them. Do they not have deputies in Germany?
I'm not convinced that there's much that the government can do in the situation (though there is some). We've had a shortage of tens of thousands of truckers for a few years now and while it'd be great to mandate that rust belt white trash heroin addicts be truck drivers, I don't think that would fly. What would you have the Secretary do in this situation? What sort of executive power do you want him to exercise or is this purely an optics thing for you?
The real tragedy of this story has nothing to do with the stuff that you mentioned though. The real tragedy is we allowed two innocent newborns to be corrupted by the LGBTQ agenda where this shit is being normalized. I'm actually beginning to think that you're a left wing troll with beliefs similar to fender in that you gloss over the obviously conservative position and then pretend to be an ally of the right.
Quote (excellence @ Oct 15 2021 07:23pm)
yep they gave two male parents more leave than mothers who give birth. that pale pasty male privilege. sad!
kind of odd no one knew about this until recently, and still no one cares. he was a “tick the box” hire, aka a quid pro quo for him randomly dropping out after he had gained some momentum during the first few primary votes. everyone knows he doesn’t do anything except attempt to look the part, just like his tenure as mayor
Parental leave is something the administration is actively fighting for and it's something I think both sides can agree on. In CA, we get up to 8 weeks where the income caps out at like 70k per year rate and I think that's a pretty fair goal to fight for nation-wide. I think the administration is gunning for 12 weeks though and I'm okay with that as long as it's paid for.
Quote (Black XistenZ @ Oct 15 2021 01:16am)
You're being melodramatic. According to exit polls, white college men were the most closely divided demo in 2020, Trump (sic) won them 50-48. Even among white college women, a group that conventional wisdom views as staunchly liberal and anti-Trump, he still got 44% of the vote according to these exit polls.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election#Exit_pollingSo no, hillbillies and rednecks are not the only only ones voting for Republicans in sizeable numbers. To your broader point: the party representing working-class people running the country does not mean that smart people have no say whatsoever in how things are handled, how cars are designed etc. In earlier times, when much less people had a college degree (say during the days of FDR or so), the coalitions of the parties were even more skewed toward the uneducated and still able to run the country well and achieve technological and social progress. You're making it seem as if we're straight on our way to "Idiocracy" if the party with the less educateted coalition wins elections. :rolleyes:
Now, if a party actively promotes an anti-science culture, that is a problem - but that's an argument against being anti-science rather than being against educational polarization or pro-elitism. ;)
I never implied that it's "only hillbillies" who are voting for Trump. I only said that education level is now one of the best (if not the best) predictor of how someone voted. Even the fact that black voters overwhelming vote Democrat translates to millions of Negros voting Republican.
In earlier times, the elites had far more control of the direction of the country. It's only a recent phenomenon where non-elites are beginning to control of things that they have no business controlling. Keep in mind that there's a difference between advocating on behalf of the uneducated and actually allowing them to write legislation. Perhaps you want the former but we're getting the latter in America. Honestly, if you spent some actual time in America, I think you'd move over to the Democrats instantly because you're used to a certain standard in Europe.