Trump's Second and Third year in office

Quote: Fleaswatter

Hmmm, so dedicated Federal employees, WHO WILL RECEIVE BACK PAY, are putting their dislike of the President ahead of safety in the air?

I hope that there is some process available to punish or even fire those federal workers who seem not to care about the safety of air travelers.

Not only is the administration out of touch, so is its supporters.

$250k bond?

You heard it here first: Another nothingberder.

#LetThatSinkIn

You want employees that care? Go to a social worker or therapist.

I want pilots and ATC that land my plane safely, caring is optional .

Where is caring in a job description?

As the saying goes, " I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted a paycheck".

Quote: MaxPen

Not really sure why ATC and everything related to it is not considered essential. A law needs to be made to pay these people working, shutdown or not. Then take a look at all the people sitting at home. I think it's time to let a majority of them find employment elsewhere.

Earlier this month the House passed a spending bill specifically for "Transportation, HUD and Related Agencies." Twelve Republicans voted with the Democrats.

If they were so concerned about the shutdown's effects on air travel, the Senate and the President could have chosen to act on this bill. Passage would have ensured the ATCs get paid, even with the remaining parts of the government still shuttered. Instead, they chose to do nothing.

I wonder what Ann Coulter has to say about the deal to re-open the government?

Quote: terapined

Hmm
I hope that there is some process available to punish or even fire the President who seems not to care about the safety of air travelers

I never realized
that the President
was an Air Traffic Controller
or a TSA agent
or was calling in sick

Quote: Steverinos

Not only is the administration out of touch, so is its supporters.

How are the administration's supporters out of touch?
Is it his supporters who are acting like spoiled brats and calling in sick,
putting the safety of air travelers at risk?
Please enlighten me.

Quote: Fleaswatter

Please enlighten me.

Quote: Fleaswatter

Hmmm, so dedicated Federal employees, WHO WILL RECEIVE BACK PAY, are putting their dislike of the President ahead of safety in the air?

I hope that there is some process available to punish or even fire those federal workers who seem not to care about the safety of air travelers.

The first sentence calls the employees "dedicated", and the next says you want the same "dedicated" employees fired or punished.

Seems not only contradicting to me, but also, yes, out of touch.

Just a few plane crashes and we will show Trump doesn't care about us dedicated employees! Besides Hillary won the popular vote, don't forget.

Quote: Steverinos

I wonder what Ann Coulter has to say about the deal to re-open the government?

Check her Twitter. She’s NOT happy.

Nancy Pelosi kicked Donald’s ass at every step during this shutdown. Taking away the SOTU worked. Truly quite amazing.

Trump says a deal has been reached. Why isn't anyone else? Where is Chuck and Nancy? Did Donny just admit defeat without telling Congress?

He got $0 for his wall.

Master negotiator!!!!

Quote: ams288

Check her Twitter. She’s NOT happy.

I think she's gonna be on Real Time tonight.

/popcorn

https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status/1088888030901882880

lol

Quote: Steverinos

The first sentence calls the employees "dedicated", and the next says you want the same "dedicated" employees fired or punished.

Seems not only contradicting to me, but also, yes, out of touch.

I guess I should use the "/sarcasm' tag for you to understand in the future

How is this for you:
Hmmm, so "dedicated" [sarcasm] Federal employees, WHO WILL RECEIVE BACK PAY, are putting their dislike of the President ahead of safety in the air?

You knew exactly what I meant in my post. Go ahead and continue your word games if it makes you feel better.

Roger Stone who worked in the Nixon does a Nixon impression after making bail. Does he think that was a good outcome for Nixon?

Quote: Fleaswatter

I guess I should use the "/sarcasm' tag for you to understand in the future

How is this for you:
Hmmm, so "dedicated" [sarcasm] Federal employees, WHO WILL RECEIVE BACK PAY, are putting their dislike of the President ahead of safety in the air?

You knew exactly what I meant in my post. Go ahead and continue your word games if it makes you feel better.

Honestly didn't. I guess all the praising of these employees that Trump has been doing and saying that they are awesome and that he is standing by them, and that they should just work it out with their local grocery store, and your unbridled support for him, threw me off.

My fault your bad.

Yeah, he's not a crook, is he?

Quote: terapined

:-(
I work in business travel and this whole situation is becoming a clusterf**k

In all seriousness, isn't this what is known as "job security" for you? Taking care of your clients during a clustrf...k is really why they pay you!

Looks like Ann Coulter's slut shaming of Trump didn't work. Govt to reopen.

Donald has a rough night of Fox News viewing ahead of him...

Can't wait for a couple of days from now when we get the detailed anonymously-sourced articles about how badly he reacted to this thumping.

I think downthread somewhere I posed the question about which person connected to Trump would next be arrested. I guess the answer is Roger Stone.

Who would you bet on being next?

What odds could I get on Giuliani?

Quote: SOOPOO

I think downthread somewhere I posed the question about which person connected to Trump would next be arrested. I guess the answer is Roger Stone.

Who would you bet on being next?

What odds could I get on Giuliani?

Just the sort of future conversation you saw yourself engaging in when you voted for him, right? Almost ready to admit you might have been conned?

Quote: SOOPOO

I think downthread somewhere I posed the question about which person connected to Trump would next be arrested. I guess the answer is Roger Stone.

Who would you bet on being next?

What odds could I get on Giuliani?

God knows Giuliani has played some really odd ball game, but I'm not sure anyone is that interested in pursuit of anything but malfeasance. Who is left? The sons?


edit or maybe I meant malpractice.

Quote: billryan

Just the sort of future conversation you saw yourself engaging in when you voted for him, right? Almost ready to admit you might have been conned?

For probably the thirtieth or so time, I did not vote for him.

Quote: Fleaswatter

Hmmm, so dedicated Federal employees, WHO WILL RECEIVE BACK PAY, are putting their dislike of the President ahead of safety in the air?

I hope that there is some process available to punish or even fire those federal workers who seem not to care about the safety of air travelers.

What??

Boy, you just don't get it.

These people have been running shorthanded before the shutdown. Staffing is at a 30 year low, so most of them were already working 10 hours a day, 60 hour weeks before the strike.

Controllers don't work 9 to 5. Planes fly ALL the time. Everyone has to work whatever comes at them, so they're not allowed to take easy schedules. They have to be able to work at the max.

The government requires them to work rotating shifts, known as rattlers. The basic schedule is, work 4 to midnight. Then 2pm-10. Then 7am-3. 6am to 2. The last day, they come back that same day and work from 11pm to 7am, overnight.

Now pad that out in 2 hours each day, and add another day, to make it 60 hours. Nobody is able to eat or sleep on a schedule. Everyone is required to rest for 8 hours, then come back, 2-3 times a week. This is what they were doing BEFORE the strike.

You are not allowed to work if you need any kind of medication. You can't take cold or flu medicine, let alone most prescription drugs. You are required to take sick leave. If you try to come in sick, the others you work with force you to leave because they don't want what you've got.

Now. Take away all the techicians who keep your equipment running, the assistants who can do some of the paperwork and staff work that has to happen on a daily/hourly/constant basis for the system to work, the people who clean your constantly used quarters and bathrooms, who staff your cafeterias, full your vending machines, answer the phones, etc. You have to do all that stuff for yourself, mostly during your mandated rest (2 15 min and 2 30 min breaks in a 10 hour day). Some of that, mostly equipment issues, you're not allowed to do even if you know how.

It's winter. People get sick. If you get sick, you get medically decertified. You have to be recertification and off any waiting period for the medication you needed. The people who are responsible for re-certifying you are furloughed, so you're not allowed to work because you can't get permission.

If you are medically decertified, you would usually be assigned non-controller duties ie staff or training, while waiting re-certification. But during a shutdown, no one is allowed to do any training or staff work, including disqualified but otherwise useful controllers.

Over 5 weeks in (today starts the 6th week), the overload is exhausting. No relief in sight until today, and the President claiming months or a year. You have no money, you have no help, your family is freaking out and adding huge stress to your life.

The amazing thing is that they've managed to go this long without impacting air service. That's due entirely to their sense of mission and the worldwide support they've received from virtually every other ATC entity, as well as their family and community. And the extra work they've been picking up as Uber drivers and waitresses rather than getting the rest they need from that punishing schedule.

I sincerely won't hear one more disparaging word about them. Your president thanked them today for their loyalty and patriotism to this country. You might try living up to even his very low standard.

They did not walk. They did not work to rule. They did not sick out - those that are on SL are mostly those who are not allowed to be there to support the operation. The mission is bigger than all of them, and they swear an oath to do it, and stand together to make it through garbage like this bogus shutdown.

If you've been watching any of the news shows, you've been seeing my good friends and former colleagues on CNN, ABC, Fox, NBC, CBS, and every local channel. Even those of us who are retired have been lobbying, contributing, and supporting them and the mission. But it's hard to believe you've been watching any of this coverage, because if you had, you could not have made those aspersions.

Thanks for pushing my buttons with your ignorance and malice.

Quote: SOOPOO

I think downthread somewhere I posed the question about which person connected to Trump would next be arrested. I guess the answer is Roger Stone.

Who would you bet on being next?

Don Jr.

It's pretty clear he lied to Congress. They nailed Michael Cohen on that.

Quote: ams288

Donald has a rough night of Fox News viewing ahead of him...

Can't wait for a couple of days from now when we get the detailed anonymously-sourced articles about how badly he reacted to this thumping.

Future: Trump creates emergency at border in 3 weeks.
Or
Trump succeeds and distracts his own base by being his crazy self so they can't focus on the wall.

Quote: rxwine

Future: Trump creates emergency at border in 3 weeks.
Or
Trump succeeds and distracts his own base by being his crazy self so they can't focus on the wall.

Or Ann Coulter criticizes his caving in tonight and tomorrow trump announces the shutdown must continue after all because of the emergency at the border

Quote: darkoz

Or Ann Coulter criticizes his caving in tonight and tomorrow trump announces the shutdown must continue after all because of the emergency at the border

She already did. Said he replaced GHWB as the biggest wimp to ever be president or something very close to that.

Last night on CNN, the host was showing a purported draft of the Emergency Order that Donny may or may not use. In it it showed where the money for the wall could be found. All the money was to be spent designing the wall, then contracting it out. If it is a National Emergency, how does building a wall that won't start for months at best, and most likely be years until finished help with the emergency today? Should Donny call for an army of volunteers to face this invasion? Isn't that what Abe Lincoln did?
If Honest Abe could , by executive order, call for 75,000 Volunteers, should Donny do anything less? What Does Fredric Douglass have to say about this?

Quote: beachbumbabs

Thanks for pushing my buttons with your ignorance and malice.

I will reply to the rest of your thread another time but I find these words very insulting.
I would probably get suspended if I said them.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Thanks for pushing my buttons with your ignorance and malice.

Thanks for your detailed explanation of the situation in the ATC world, but I think you could have left the last line out. It addresses the poster, not the comment.

Now...why do we have a 30 year low in controllers? I am guessing many are reaching the retirement age now that had been hired when the others were fired for illegally striking, so I can see a reason for there to be a possible shortage. What made the shortage actually take place? Did leadership fail to recognize that there is a pretty tight window for ATC working years? Are they having trouble hiring?

I understand the stresses of work like this, but weren't we kind of "already there" even before the shutdown?

What is being done to address the problem?

Why is there no challenge to the age 56 retirement, for example?

I'm not trying to insult your profession, but to understand it better.

Quote: Fleaswatter

I will reply to the rest of your thread another time but I find these words very insulting.
I would probably get suspended if I said them.

I found your post very insulting to ATC employees

Quote: SOOPOO

In all seriousness, isn't this what is known as "job security" for you? Taking care of your clients during a clustrf...k is really why they pay you!

In all seriousness
If there was an incident where huge crowd of injured people came into your emergency overwhelming the staff
Would you sit back and smile telling all your co-workers this is "job security"????????
Taking care of your patients is why they pay you so you are ok with overwhelmed emergency rooms

Quote: ams288

Donald has a rough night of Fox News viewing ahead of him...

Just went to Breibart
Looks like they cant bring themselves to cover that Trump caved
weird. This is the internet. Not a newspaper with day old news

Biggest story on their home page

Nancy Pelosi: State of the Union Still Not Scheduled for Tuesday, Will Not Discuss with Trump Until Government Reopened

Quote: beachbumbabs

What??

Boy, you just don't get it.

These people have been running shorthanded before the shutdown. Staffing is at a 30 year low, so most of them were already working 10 hours a day, 60 hour weeks before the strike.

Controllers don't work 9 to 5. Planes fly ALL the time. Everyone has to work whatever comes at them, so they're not allowed to take easy schedules. They have to be able to work at the max.

The government requires them to work rotating shifts, known as rattlers. The basic schedule is, work 4 to midnight. Then 2pm-10. Then 7am-3. 6am to 2. The last day, they come back that same day and work from 11pm to 7am, overnight.

Now pad that out in 2 hours each day, and add another day, to make it 60 hours. Nobody is able to eat or sleep on a schedule. Everyone is required to rest for 8 hours, then come back, 2-3 times a week. This is what they were doing BEFORE the strike.

Strike? It should have been a strike. How many pilots would have needed to walk out in sympathy, or cops or even power linemen for that matter? That is the problem with unions is, they don't actually stick together. If teachers coast to coast would have walked out in sympathy, this whole thing would have ended differently.

I'm considering a one person [so far] thought experiment that on a national level, the reason that unions actually exist is to prevent exactly what I mentioned. The reason Longshoreman are so powerful is, if they have a labor dispute in Seattle, the entire west coast walks out in support. Strikes are settled quickly. In a fashion, the ATC being unionized works against them. Their employer is only to glad to only have to deal with "the union" instead of each ATC individually, as happens in open shops.

Quote:

... If you try to come in sick, the others you work with force you to leave because they don't want what you've got.

And that's the way professionals should behave! I hate it when people that have sick leave who are sick want to come in and share their disease, and bank their leave for other purposes. I would vote their sick leave away from them, had I the power.

Quote:

I sincerely won't hear one more disparaging word about them. Your president thanked them today for their loyalty and patriotism to this country. You might try living up to even his very low standard.

Thanks Bro's and Sis.

More of the one person TE. I've said before, I don't believe the POTUS has as much authority as the press reports. And I don't think Trump gives a crap about the enormous effort put forth by your brethren. I think it's at least as possible that during yesterday's vote in Davos, it was decided it was possible that this shutdown might lead to a worldwide yellow vest movement? Now that is something for the PTB to fear, worldwide workers uniting. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/these-13-charts-show-what-the-world-really-thinks-about-globalization-4-0/

One train of thought is the reason DJT even wanted to be prez is for narcissism or ego or whatever, he probably has enough money? But I think at least part of the reason he ran, is he was promised if he does as told, he gets a seat at the BIS, which at this time he doesn't have. Call me conspiracy minded if necessary, but watch and see if after he is out of office, he doesn't get a chair within about 3 years. He want's to sit at the big boy's table.

Quote:

They did not walk. They did not work to rule. They did not sick out - those that are on SL are mostly those who are not allowed to be there to support the operation. The mission is bigger than all of them, and they swear an oath to do it, and stand together to make it through garbage like this bogus shutdown.

And that is why I think soldiers continue the fight, why they will leave a nice safe foxhole and charge a pillbox. Not for fame, or government mandate. They do it because of the guy next to them. [when I use guy, it is non gender specific]

Quote:

If you've been watching any of the news shows, you've been seeing my good friends and former colleagues on CNN, ABC, Fox, NBC, CBS, and every local channel.

I haven't seen a lick. But I am curious if Trump's coup in Venezuela is making headlines? Venz. had a fair election and reelected Maduro, Trump declares he is not the pres. and he himself declares Guido [sp] to be the pres of Venz. wtf? Pompeo gives Guido twenty million for starters. Vlad just sent Russian mercs to defend Maduro. This is big news, but I don't get msm so I don't know what's being said? I wonder why the left is supporting Trumps election obfuscation in a foreign country.

I don't want Trump to say one gd word if millions more Venezuelans enter America. You can't destroy a country and not expect the people to flee .

Quote: petroglyph

And that's the way professionals should behave! I hate it when people that have sick leave who are sick want to come in and share their disease, and bank their leave for other purposes. I would vote their sick leave away from them, had I the power.

On the flip side I have seen a manager call a sick person at home and ask them to come in anyway.
Of course this is one of the worst managers I have worked for , for this reason and many others
Bad managers are unfortunately a reality in some work places

Quote: darkoz

Or Ann Coulter criticizes his caving in tonight and tomorrow trump announces the shutdown must continue after all because of the emergency at the border

Quote:

Trump tweets about Roger Stone raid, "Who alerted CNN to be there?" Just think! If you were president, you could haul the FBI director's ass into the Oval Office and ask him yourself.

To be fair, pointing out his lack of personal responsibility, excessive whining, and extreme liberalism isn't really being critical when Trump himself embraces all those values.

Quote: RonC

Thanks for your detailed explanation of the situation in the ATC world, but I think you could have left the last line out. It addresses the poster, not the comment.

Now...why do we have a 30 year low in controllers? I am guessing many are reaching the retirement age now that had been hired when the others were fired for illegally striking, so I can see a reason for there to be a possible shortage. What made the shortage actually take place? Did leadership fail to recognize that there is a pretty tight window for ATC working years? Are they having trouble hiring?

I understand the stresses of work like this, but weren't we kind of "already there" even before the shutdown?

What is being done to address the problem?

Why is there no challenge to the age 56 retirement, for example?

I'm not trying to insult your profession, but to understand it better.

That's a really good question and takes half a book to answer. I went into it in some detail a couple weeks ago but can't remember where - might have been on DT.

One large factor is that there is a 2 decades+ push to privatize the function. They don't want to commit to new hires with federal benefits and pensions. They have been piecemealing off FAA jobs to corporations.

Another is all the budget fights and CRs and shutdowns. They don't fund the trainee stream, the academy, or the hiring process. Which takes us to the next problem:

There was a hiring freeze imposed in 1993, not lifted until about 2002. So an entire generation of new controllers was missed. Then they started to panic.

Which led to the next problem. It's very expensive to train a controller, about 1M per person. They tried to shortcut that process by allowing private universities to create and administer ATC majors as the exclusive source and effectively guarantee those grads a job. We started getting those people in 2002, ramping up to 2006-2014 or so.

Which led to the next problem: the schools turned out awful hirees, unprepared, without even basic skills and very few with the innate talent necessary to move airplanes. It's not intelligence and book-learning, though those are needed along the way: it's thinking non-spatially, 3 dimensional visualization, and projection of multiple targets moving, all at different speeds.

Nationwide, about 80% were washing out. In places like Chicago and NY Tracon, the failures were above 95%. The kids just couldn't do the job. So almost all of that generation was wasted. So the FAA got drastic. They cancelled their entire hiring list and started over, disqualifying all these kids with now-worthless 100k degrees. There went that generation.

The newest generation is still in training. It takes 2-5 years to become full performance, depending on how complex the facility is.

Mean time, the workforce is aging out. Controlling is a young person's job, and they have enough data to prove that your skills erode enough that you are dangerous by your 50s, and only your experience keeps you in the game. So we are given early retirement options, (I went at 50) and all controllers are forced out by their 56th birthday.

Another law is that you must be hired by your 31st birthday or you're ineligible. Part of that is being a young persons job, part is because it's 25 years from 31 to 56, when a person can have earned a full retirement, but also that they get full value from training you.

And the other part they don't talk about much, is that life expectancy in the job is about 10 years less than the national average, around age 66. You can't believe how many of my co-workers have died in their 40s and 50s or are now terminally ill. Just plotzed from heart, bp, or cancer.

So, 3 generations of new hires lost, forced early retirement, there's a huuuge shortage of experienced people in the job, and almost nobody in the pipeline. 20% of those working now are eligible, and there was about to be a mass retirement if this thing didn't stop.

Today, 6 controllers out of 13 in one sector of Washington Center were sick. There was no one to replace them. That caused the delay of 3,700 flights. Just imagine if the 2000 most experienced of the 10000 we have working dropped their paperwork next week. Game over.

And you're right, I was rude to fleaswatter. I will probably apologize soon. I rarely get that mad.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Sharpie and paper would work just fine. It wasn't even a speech until 1913, when Woodrow Wilson delivered it orally.

Quote: wiki

During most of the country's first century, the President primarily only submitted a written report to Congress. After 1913, Woodrow Wilson, the 28th U.S. President, began the regular practice of delivering the address to Congress in person as a way to rally support for the President's agenda.[1] With the advent of radio and television, the address is now broadcast live across the country on many networks.[4]

Exactly Babs - and the thing is - the Constitution only mandates it is given "from time to time" - there is nothing requiring that it be yearly or on a specific date - and, like you so stated, it does not have to be given orally, it can be in writing or, these days, via email

Quote: tringlomane

To people that know what a smirk l.

When did smirking become illegal.
I had a smirk on my puss most of the
time at age 13-17, as did my friends.
It's a kids defense for not knowing
what to do around adults. Now it's
a beat-up-able offense? The world
has gone certifiably insane.

I guarantee if I was that kid, I would
have had not only a smirk, that some
repulsive old man was in my face,
I would have said something like
'pee-u, did you have garlic for lunch
or what'. I was a terrible smart ass
at that age, got me in trouble all
the time.

Quote: EvenBob

When did smirking become illegal.
I had a smirk on my puss most of the
time at age 13-17, as did my friends.
It's a kids defense for not knowing
what to do around adults. Now it's
a beat-up-able offense? The world
has gone certifiably insane.

I guarantee if I was that kid, I would
have had not only a smirk, that some
repulsive old man was in my face,
I would have said something like
'pee-u, did you have garlic for lunch
or what'. I was a terrible smart ass
at that age, got me in trouble all
the time.

Where did I say it was illegal? It's just a generally terrible thing to do, and a vast majority of people will think it's rude at the minimum. And doing it to the wrong person can be a bigger mistake. And what you say you would would have done if you were him would even be worse if done to the wrong person.

Quote: EvenBob

When did smirking become illegal.

I got my butt whooped by the principle of our middle school for smirking when he was giving me a lecture about talking in class.

No turning back now, Donald signed the bill. The government is officially open!

Now the Dems can really rub his failure in his face...

His ineptitude in dealing with this debacle is elevating Nancy to God-like status in the eyes of many Dems. Thank god she’s Speaker again.

Quote: RonC

Thanks for your detailed explanation of the situation in the ATC world, but I think you could have left the last line out. It addresses the poster, not the comment.

Now...why do we have a 30 year low in controllers? I am guessing many are reaching the retirement age now that had been hired when the others were fired for illegally striking, so I can see a reason for there to be a possible shortage. What made the shortage actually take place? Did leadership fail to recognize that there is a pretty tight window for ATC working years? Are they having trouble hiring?

I understand the stresses of work like this, but weren't we kind of "already there" even before the shutdown?

What is being done to address the problem?

Why is there no challenge to the age 56 retirement, for example?

I'm not trying to insult your profession, but to understand it better.

ATC like law enforcement and firefighting have early burnout and the skill of ATC is very taxing on the mind. It is not an easy profession and takes a skillset and mental reasoning that most of us don't have.

In addition US ATC work conditions are pretty tough if controllers are making 60 hour weeks then that truly is a problem.

I think that BBB should get that post reviewed by another mod.

Lol. Trump closes government and liberals go ape-s***. Trump opens government and liberals go ape-s***. You can’t make this stuff up!

Quote: RS

Lol. Trump closes government and liberals go ape-s***. Trump opens government and liberals go ape-s***. You can’t make this stuff up!

Link?

But if ape-s*** means celebrating that Nancy owned Donald, you bet!

another Trump ass kissing clown bites the dust
won't be long Bozo himself will go down - one way or another
what a great day that will be

I assumed that when then President Candidate Donald Trump said he would build a wall around US to keep illegal immigrants out and have Mexicans pay for it, he was just being factitious and was talking out of his butt. As he became President, it seemed more and more that he was being SERIOUS, which is frightening. Luckily, rational people talked some sense into him and got him to realize how STUPID the wall thing really was and got him to back down. Thank God.