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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
The suspiciously sexist views of Amy Klobuchar’s management style, explained
.
@Fourth:
Its still calling for technologies that don't exist, all electric planes only work for the small scale due to the shere bulk of batteries, and zero carbon aircraft fuels are completely non-existent right now.
It also fails to cover how you can improve the economy, and do things that would cause short term harm at the same time... 1% might not sound like much to an outside observer, but brexit is put at 3% or 8% for a no-deal, and that's potentially global depression causing.
And the first block is the real sticking point, because any one who argues that medicare for all would COST money doen't seem to understand how much of a drain lack of insurence is on the current system....
To the point where it is cheaper to provide homeless housing to lower there trips to the hopsital, then to suffer the economic drain of hospital visits.... which would be nice if this was more reaised and could be exploited. :/
Edited by Imca on Feb 24th 2019 at 3:01:14 AM
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As a woman myself, I call bullshit on this article. Throwing things at your staff, berating them, or trying to get them fired from their new job after they leave you is abusive, period. And her parental leave policy was also abusive. Dismissing those concerns because “ohh this is sexism, working for a Senator is a tough job” is utter crap. Harry Reid apparently had words with her a few years ago, to no avail.
These stories aren’t coming out about Gillibrand or Harris or Warren, because presumably they aren’t abusive to their staff. And the focus on the weirdness of the comb incident or the purported sexism of reporting on these incidents is infuriating, because the story is abusive boss behavior which has too often been normalized or even praised as being “tough.”
Edited by wisewillow on Feb 24th 2019 at 6:03:51 AM
I don't think the article was saying she definitely isn't abusive, just that the particular focus on her, and other women, is rooted in sexism/misogyny. Which is believable.
Which is kind of a catch 22 with things like this: abusive behavior should be called out, but are you really addressing the underlying issue if a particular case is only being addressed because of another serious underlying issue?
Edited by LSBK on Feb 24th 2019 at 5:19:42 AM
The point seems to be that they believe that most US senators engage in this behaviour, but it’s less tolerated amongst female senators, both by staff and by the press. If all (well almost all) senators are abusive why is only a female one being called out for it?
Thing is they seem to be basicing this on assumptions, they way to refute this story is to go interview staffers (past and present) for other senators and ask if they engaged in the same kind of behaviour.
Edited by Silasw on Feb 24th 2019 at 11:16:54 AM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranIt also fails to cover how you can improve the economy, and do things that would cause short term harm at the same time... 1% might not sound like much to an outside observer, but brexit is put at 3% or 8% for a no-deal, and that's potentially global depression causing.
And the first block is the real sticking point, because any one who argues that medicare for all would COST money doen't seem to understand how much of a drain lack of insurence is on the current system....
To the point where it is cheaper to provide homeless housing to lower there trips to the hopsital, then to suffer the economic drain of hospital visits.... which would be nice if this was more reaised and could be exploited. :/
Yes, the Green New Deal is not perfect.
That doesn't contradict the vast majority of the article, the GND's objectives are viable and beneficial to our economy and society. Therefore, the resolution as a whole should be supported. Obviously, the flawed bits should be corrected in the planning stage but that's not a reason to reject the Green New Deal as a whole.
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangThe problem is that it is the very idea that you can fix wealth inequality and the environment at the same time that is flawed.
Both are short term drains on the econemy, and when the econemy has issues it's always the people at the bottom hurt worst...
As an idea it is great, but there is zero way to go about it in practice.... she keeps using the mobilization from wwii as a comparison, but that wasn't an economic boon it was an economic recovery.
But that's the thing- if we do nothing, the global economy is going to tank. The GND is just a pre-emptive recovery. There are massive up front costs, which have to be paid out of the savings we get later on when the economy becomes more sustainable.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
X4 Which indicates that people are unwilling to tolerate her behaviour, not that it’s worse. All the top senators for staff turnover are female, which means either a much higher percentage of female senators are abusive than male ones, or that staff are more willing to tolerate abuse from a man than from a women (or some other factor like female senators being more likely to recruit staff who won’t tolerate abuse).
Edited by Silasw on Feb 24th 2019 at 11:36:07 AM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranWhile I point out that asshole bosses are nothing to celebrate in Washington D.C., I think that they're very common and it's less likely there's more women who are worse than men in terms of their behavior than it's likely that they get reported more for their actions.
I remind people that a lot of the propaganda against Hillary Clinton was a nonstop stream of supposed "abuses" of her staff, military personnel (the infamous and entirely fictitious "Dress uniform Marines as waiters" rumor about her), and other stories designed to make her seem like a harridan.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 24th 2019 at 4:02:02 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.If your treating it as pre-emptive recovery then it is even worse for the opposite reason.... not doing enough.
The basic economic structure right now is unsustainable as rising populations and automation mean that more and more people are just flat out unemployable.... New jobs and wealth redistribution just delay the inevitable on that front... they don't fix it, they just kick the can down the road. Sooner or later we are just going to flat out need to face the fact that the very assumption of requiring a job to live is extremely flawed... And the longer we put that off, the more people are going to be harmed in the process of figuring it out.
Edited by Imca on Feb 24th 2019 at 4:05:12 AM
Going over the article more thoroughly, it looks like it references the very thing I was asking about.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/21/worst-bosses-congress-476729
Klobuchar had the highest staffer turnover rate last year. Though the article notes she's since hit #3 in that list.
This was what was said on Pod Save America, whose hosts are all former staffers for Obama, Clinton, and a bunch of other Democrats:
"I have three quasi-related thoughts on this: One, we all worked in Democratic politics and everyone in Democratic politics knows these stories. There are a list of members that you warn people not to work for and there are two kinds - men and women - there are members who are demanding but are generally good to their staff. Where you know you're going to have to work your ass off and they'll call you at midnight but are generally agreeable and then there are ones who are really terrible and there are huge turnover, and Amy Klobacher's staff is one of those.
Second, we should also recognize how issues like this are effected in how their covered by gender stereotypes. This would be treated differently if this were a man and that's just a fact. It's not to excuse the behavior, but how it will be covered is very different than, like; "Demanding boss who pushes everyone to his level of excellence!" It's just treated differently between a man and woman. We saw that in how Hillary Clinton was covered, we've seen that with women in politics for a very long time.
Third point is I do think it matters. Not just because you can't build a team, but because people who kiss up and kick down - that is one of the worst traits in people. We were very fortunate, Barack Obama was a great boss. He was empathetic, he cared about us, he was loyal to us. And that I think that empathy - what made him a great boss is what made him a great president. That doesn't mean Amy Klobacher would be a bad president because she had done this in her past. George Bush was famously decent to his staff and he was an absolutely miserable excuse of a president. But it is something that people should consider because how people treat those beneath them says something about them."
rollin' on dubs
With women in combat roles, a federal court rules male-only draft unconstitutional
The decision deals the biggest legal blow to the Selective Service System since the Supreme Court upheld the draft registration process in 1981. In Rostker v. Goldberg, the court ruled that a male-only draft was "fully justified" because women were ineligible for combat roles.
But U.S. District Judge Gray Miller ruled late Friday
that while historical restrictions on women serving in combat "may have justified past discrimination," men and women are now equally able to fight. In 2015, the Pentagon lifted all restrictions for women in military service.
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I think the Selective Service System makes sense. It's likely never going to be used (and there'll be a major revolt if they try another Vietnam-style draft) but it's a good idea to have an organized system for a levee en masse in the vanishingly-unlikely scenario that we need to fight a conventional World War III. It's the kind of thing that you keep under "break glass in case of Armageddon."
I would support expanding it to women.
This next part isn't about Klobacher or anyone specifically, but I think it's worth reading as well.
"We also know from working on the Hill and also having worked on presidential campaigns, it's grueling, you don't get paid very much, and what keeps you going - this is going to sound cheesy but it's real - what keeps you going is that you believe in the person that you're working for, and your're willing to sleep four hours a night, travel all over the country, not talk to your friends, not talk to your family, not just because yo believe in a certain set of issues, but you believe in the person at the top of the ticket who is leading that organization. And we've all had bosses who maybe have not met that standard, I think it's fair to say, and we have all shared a boss that did meet that standard.
Barack Obama made plenty of mistakes, has plenty of flaws, but he treated his staff like the best you could imagine. Never lost his patience, never yelled at us, never got upset. And then like you said there's the other category of bosses too, where people say they do lose their temper once in a while and they're demanding, but it's worth it because [Inaudible].
And then there's the category of people who are like, "They treat people like shit."
And you hear about it all over Capital Hill. And you do wonder to yourself, if the person's public image is one way, yet the people who work for them all the time have these stories? And we've all heard these stories Then you're like what does that mean? That they have this different public persona than they do they way they treat the people who work with them all the time.
-Other host cuts in-
"Counterpoint! I'm sick of all these damby-pamby Democrats remembering people's birthdays, and checking on them when they have the flu! I want a fucking nightmare tyrant who runs her office like a goddamn Gulag! I want people to look away! I want The Favorite to happen in the White House! Anything that would have taken in sixth months takes five fucking days! Medicare-For-All? Janurary 27!"
-First Host again-
"I'll say this: Hillary Clinton - who had to deal with an incredible amount of sexism as she ran for president and throughout her career - she is someone who, as we all know and we told people when we all got to know her, is famously kind to everyone in her staff. Tommy you remember in the White House when she hurt her arm and had a sling and you broke your arm and had a sling, and came and she signed it for you and wrote a note when she barely knew you. She's a nice person, she's just a good person."
While it's very possible that Klobuchar is getting more scrutiny and more censure for her actions and the way she treats her staff than a male member of Congress who does the same would, I think the scrutiny itself is justified given that she's running for President. There is no minimum acceptable quota of office supplies thrown at interns whether it's common practice or not. It sounds like there's a culture of employee abuse in Congress, and it's sexist coverage to pretend she's the only one who does it; it's also almost certainly sexist to pretend that she's the first employee abuser to run for President, and it's worth looking into whether, and why, previous candidates who have abused staff were not given the same level of scrutiny. But the fact remains that, like the last quote in Parable's post a few posts ago, how people treat the ones under them says a lot about them - especially when that person is aiming for the highest seat in the country.
It's been fun....Uh-huh.
I'm just going to throw out that I think that Democrats should make advancing worker's rights a part of their platform, and...well, charity begins at home, as they say.
Oh God! Natural light!

Bigots being bigots. No surprise here.
Disgusted, but not surprised