discussion Pete Buttigieg under fire for holiday flight cancellation disaster by Southwest

[ClashAndBurn]

34 minutes ago, Bears01 said:

Lord knows we don’t agree on everything (and we viciously disagree when it comes to China) but I must say: this argument/perspective really changed my mind. I was getting ready to say: “yeah, he sucks at his job, but I don’t think there was too much he could actually do about what transpired the last few days”. But I must say this changed my mind. 
 

He’s always been a hack and Biden gave him this job so he could further his political/presidential ambitions, but man has he sucked this whole time. He’s arguably been the most incompetent member of Biden’s cabinet 

I legitimately don’t think there’s any other member of Biden’s cabinet worth complaining about aside from Pete and Kamala. They’re truly the worst, most incompetent at their jobs and completely out of their element/in over their heads. Truly astounding how bad those two truly are

[discosean]

The people in here calling for him to resign are just mad that Pete will never bottom for them. 

[ClashAndBurn]

EVEN TREVOR NOAH!

 

Yet the girls will still run in here to protect Pete just because he likes the D. Amazing

[Headlock]

2 hours ago, spree said:

I’m voting Republican just to cancel his vote out. 

Oh that’s not-

 

Edited December 30, 2022 by Headlock

[ClashAndBurn]

2 hours ago, Mean Trees said:

OMG  Literally, I cannot.

 

 

And nice touch the centrist Dem complaining about ''Corporate failure''. If you cared that deeply about it, then you wouldn't be supporting a McKinsey ghoul.

LOL, it keeps coming. Here’s a reply from a NAFO troll with his ugly dog meme profile picture

 

The most progressive members of either Chamber are homophobes now? Please!  

[ClashAndBurn]

1 minute ago, Headlock said:

Oh that’s not-

 

He’s already said on this forum before that he voted for DeSantis because he was good for “property values” or whatever, so I already knew they’re full of it  

[Swirl900]

So when people wealthy enough to fly have issues then it's finally a problem.

 

But when working class railroad workers are told they don't get a single day of sick leave it's crickets from the public and a boot on the neck from this administration. Gross.

[MAKSIM]

Ro Khanna and Bernie Sanders are such transparent politicians. Always running for office, never helping people. 
 

Southwest is giving refunds and compensation for hotels, meals and transport and will be subject to higher scrutiny now. No reasonable person should believe a Secretary of Transportation should be involved in implementing the flight scheduling program of Southwest, a single airline. That’s not a regulators job and to try to frame it as a gross oversight is astounding when you just had the biggest infrastructure bill passed ever being deployed. 

[Bears01]

1 hour ago, ClashAndBurn said:

I legitimately don’t think there’s any other member of Biden’s cabinet worth complaining about aside from Pete and Kamala. They’re truly the worst, most incompetent at their jobs and completely out of their element/in over their heads. Truly astounding how bad those two truly are

Gina raimondo (Commerce) is a little too corporate for my liking, but yeah the rest are either milquetoast and boring (like Vilsack AG) or actually pretty based (Haaland interior, Cardona Education) 

 

But yeah I agree, those 2 have big presidential ambitions and they both SUCK. Lord help us in a post trump world because the establishment has stars in their eyes for those 2 and NEITHER are close to electable 

[JustLikeHoney]

6 hours ago, Communion said:

...what do you think regulatory agencies... do? 

 

I know not everyone is fully enthralled in consumer ethics but it's wild that some of you are legitimately like "I don't think we need to do anything drastic like fine a greedy corporation into bankruptcy!!" just because it aligns with the inaction of the politician who you've chosen to stan because you share their sexuality. 

 

They could make Ariana Grande the next Secretary of Transportation and if she said we don't need to fine Southwest, I'd say **** her and fine Southwest out of business.  No "I met with them and they promise to do their best". Corruption demands punishment.

 

The literal point of the government is to bring the hammer down on private business. 

Wait did you just praise Obama's administration for something? Has hell frozen over?  Also, all Washington is probably in vacation. It's the holidays you know. 

Edited December 30, 2022 by JustLikeHoney

[ClashAndBurn]

2 minutes ago, JustLikeHoney said:

Wait did you just praise Obama's administration for something? Has hell frozen over?  Also, all Washington is probably in vacation. It's the holidays you know. 

That is NOT an excuse, as Pete Buttigieg has failed at his job the entire time he's been in it the past two years. Literally went on paternity leave as airlines were descending into chaos over the summer and said "Not my problem!"  

[JustLikeHoney]

Just now, ClashAndBurn said:

That is NOT an excuse, as Pete Buttigieg has failed at his job the entire time he's been in it the past two years. Literally went on paternity leave as airlines were descending into chaos over the summer and said "Not my problem!"  

Girl this just happened wait until everyone in the regulatory office is back from vacay. 

[ClashAndBurn]

11 minutes ago, JustLikeHoney said:

Girl this just happened wait until everyone in the regulatory office is back from vacay. 

What part of "this is the culmination of a long-term problem due to there being a functionally empty chair at the Secretary of Transportation's desk while Pete goes ghost on paternity leave and jockeys for the Biden Administration in the beltway press interviews" is not getting through to you? This is NOT just a now problem. This is a "past two years since he took the job" problem.

[JustLikeHoney]

12 minutes ago, ClashAndBurn said:

What part of "this is the culmination of a long-term problem due to there being a functionally empty chair at the Secretary of Transportation's desk while Pete goes ghost on paternity leave and jockeys for the Biden Administration in the beltway press interviews" is not getting through to you? This is NOT just a now problem. This is a "past two years since he took the job" problem.

There is a huge winter storm in the US. Obviously SouthWest would be the most affected by this because they are the biggest domestic passenger airline in the US and most of their flights are where the Winter Storm that is literally killing people is. 

 

Besides I thought cancelations due to weather isn't part of the deal for fines.

[ClashAndBurn]

5 minutes ago, JustLikeHoney said:

There is a huge winter storm in the US. Obviously SouthWest would be the most affected by this because they are the biggest domestic passenger airline in the US and most of their flights are where the Winter Storm that is literally killing people is. 

 

Besides I thought cancelations due to weather isn't part of the deal for fines.

Why are you so invested in defending Pete that you're blatantly overlooking that there have been SYSTEMIC PROBLEMS IN DOT FOR THE TWO YEARS since he'd been given his undeserved position?!

 

Pete does not care about you. He never will.

 

[JustLikeHoney]

1 minute ago, ClashAndBurn said:

Why are you so invested in defending Pete that you're blatantly overlooking that there have been SYSTEMIC PROBLEMS IN DOT FOR THE TWO YEARS since he'd been given his undeserved position?!

 

Pete does not care about you. He never will.

 

This thread is directly blaming Pete for the Southwest holiday cancelation problem. It's literally in the title. 

 

Pete cannot control the weather. 

[Communion]

6 hours ago, MAKSIM said:

Ro Khanna and Bernie Sanders are such transparent politicians. Always running for office, never helping people. 
 

Southwest is giving refunds and compensation for hotels, meals and transport and will be subject to higher scrutiny now. No reasonable person should believe a Secretary of Transportation should be involved in implementing the flight scheduling program of Southwest, a single airline. That’s not a regulators job and to try to frame it as a gross oversight is astounding when you just had the biggest infrastructure bill passed ever being deployed. 

If they're responsible for refunds, then the basic logic is they've committed enough negligence to the consumer to warrant the issuing of fines. Why are some.of you against holdong.big business accountable? 

 

People do not want this:

"We've spoken to the head of the company and have gotten assurance that they will do better going forward and have decided to cover these costs for flyers durinf this one time incident."

 

That's allowing a company to save face and do massive PR explicitly to block any kind of new standard of scrutiny.

 

Fines are punitive. It's not just "give people their money back". It's paying for damages done due to corporate negligence. Letting airlines who purposefully overbooked flights anyway do PR via refunds doesn't cause any meaningful change in stopping this bad business behavior from happening again. 

[MAKSIM]

1 hour ago, Communion said:

If they're responsible for refunds, then the basic logic is they've committed enough negligence to the consumer to warrant the issuing of fines. Why are some.of you against holdong.big business accountable? 

 

People do not want this:

"We've spoken to the head of the company and have gotten assurance that they will do better going forward and have decided to cover these costs for flyers durinf this one time incident."

 

That's allowing a company to save face and do massive PR explicitly to block any kind of new standard of scrutiny.

 

Fines are punitive. It's not just "give people their money back". It's paying for damages done due to corporate negligence. Letting airlines who purposefully overbooked flights anyway do PR via refunds doesn't cause any meaningful change in stopping this bad business behavior from happening again. 

Because there already are methods in place for refunds and reimbursements for meals, hotels and transportation and it appears those are happening. If they don’t happen, then it’s a failure of the regulator. But a failure on one airlines employee tracking system not due to weather is is such an unusual technocratic thing for a department secretary to be personally responsible for. 
 

If Southwest changes and updates it’s internal system and all people are given refunds and reimbursements, then the regulator did its job. 

[Communion]

1 hour ago, MAKSIM said:

Because there already are methods in place for refunds and reimbursements for meals, hotels and transportation and it appears those are happening.

But the point is these cancellations happen too often and too frequently that refund and reimbursement are no appropriate measures for correction. The point of giving regulators the punitive ability to *fine* businesses is to punish them beyond actions that they elect to do. The government has the power to punish bad businesses and set an example to cause a change. The frustration is that it is not being done. 

 

Liberals can't say there's no difference in a neoliberal president like Biden and a progressive like Sanders would have been when these instances show Biden has stacked his admin with people who are vehemently ideologically opposed to using the government's capacity to reign in corporate corruption. 

 

1 hour ago, MAKSIM said:

If Southwest changes and updates it’s internal system and all people are given refunds and reimbursements

And then what happens when these issues happen again because they were caused by corporate greed that led to outdated systems and pilot shortages due to cutting of staff in favor of stock buybacks?

 

Despite the neoliberal consensus, no industry or business is owed a certain amount of attempts to be too big too fail. Sometimes the government has the right to just let the business fail and fine it into oblivion. 

 

Again, Pete is going to be criticized for being ideologically opposed to using his agency in the way it is meant to work. You don't dangle a $7b carrot in front of a business and then just give them the carrot without beating them with the stick. 

 

Liberals think government is a gentle hand to nudge businesses into doing good deeds they can be convinced into doing. Progressives understand government is the hammer to break apart corruption. These continued transporting failures show the liberal worldview is simply wrong and people are only defending Pete because they want his corrupt self as president one day. 

Edited December 30, 2022 by Communion

[ClashAndBurn]

Exactly. Refunds are PR and saving face. DOT is supposed to be a regulatory body, not a PR firm. SouthWest needs to be fined into oblivion, but Pete needs their campaign dollars to run for president in 6-10 years, so he won’t do that.

[ClashAndBurn]

Worst Secretary of Transportation ever.

 

Worst political stan base ever. Hillary Hens and KHive’s faves at least have some accomplishments to stan for. 

[Vermillion]

At the VERY least, there’s basic evidence of punitive fines working in the past with airlines and that wasn’t applied here. Just at a basic level that could’ve been applied, not even getting into system management. He needs to answer to that and hasn’t.

 

The cynic’s take is his being light on regs because of lobbyists to the DOT but that’s not new. Unless the higher-ups didn’t want a legal fight on their hands.

 

Anyone arguing that this is a knee-jerk attempt at tanking future prez prospects have bigger fish to fry, starting with his numbers with black voters which can’t be dismissed with knee-jerk accusations of homophobia either.

[GhostBox]

This has about nothing to do with Pete 💀

[Vermillion]

1 minute ago, GhostBox said:

This has about nothing to do with Pete 💀

There’s literally data posted here of past fines working to avoid this exact problem and warnings of upgrades needing to be installed that went to stock buybacks instead. This had little to nothing to do with the weather.

[ClashAndBurn]

3 minutes ago, GhostBox said:

This has about nothing to do with Pete 💀

Your wanting Pete to be completely innocent when he’s intentionally going easy on these crooked companies and not fining them because he on wants their campaign donations in 2028 doesn’t make it true.

 

Not surprised at all that this is your take on the situation though