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> The Southwest Airline Pilots Association (SWAPA), the union representing pilots at the airline, similarly denied there was a job action — official or otherwis

> The Southwest Airline Pilots Association (SWAPA), the union representing pilots at the airline, similarly denied there was a job action — official or otherwise. I gotta admit, when I first heard these denials I assumed that the union was cautiously not confessing to a sick-out. But instead it seems as if disinformation is spinning current events to change perception about the Executive's new policy. Sadly, even after it's fact-checked - people won't remember the fact that it was bogus nor will they count it as a strike against the source that reported it.

slg 5y ago
>But instead it seems as if disinformation is spinning current events to change perception about the Executive's new policy. Sadly, even after it's fact-checked - people won't remember the fact that it was bogus nor will they count it as a strike against the source that reported it. What might help us remember is to name and shame the people responsible. Ted Cruz claimed to have heard this from multiple people including the leader of the union who you quoted denying it.
- rPlayer6554 5y ago
  Source on this?
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  Some politicians are bulletproof to "name and shame", their supporters will even blank out or excuse away that they did something shameful... Because if those supporters admit (ultimately to themselves) that the people they voted for were cheap scammers, how does that look on their self-belief that they're intelligent people? They'd rather twist reality to not shatter said self-belief.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    I will never understand the career of Willie Brown. Literally hundreds of fake mayor jobs, many of which were assigned to mistresses, massive theft of public funds, legendary and brazen corruption, and yet he's still a well-loved figure.
    - jet_32951 5y ago
      Bingo. Slick Willie was 99% into self-dealing through one hustle or another, yet few figured it out.
    - shuckles 5y ago
      Some of the scams are still ongoing, to boot.
    - da_big_ghey 5y ago
      Some of those jobs went to people who now have power, former mistress with some such job is now Vice President. So no surprise in there.
    - TrispusAttucks 5y ago
      For those unfamiliar with this [1] politician. Interestingly, Willie was also in a romantic relationship with now Vice President Kamala Harris prior to her political assent. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Brown_(politician) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Brown_(politician)
      - wyldfire 5y ago
        'dissent' is an antonym of assent. I think you mean 'ascent', like you do on stairs.
        TrispusAttucks 5y ago
        Yep. Was on mobile. Looks like post is locked now. Thanks for clarification.
      - rsj_hn 5y ago
        That Kamala was involved with him is remarkable only in that usually Willie was seen with a tall, leggy blonde, so she wasn't his type. Most of his mistresses he would find government jobs for -- when he was speaker of the house, Willie had over 1000 full time "aides", but they weren't primarily mistresses, most were pure political patronage positions, to keep the power base growing. Brown was in absolute control of the Assembly, "In many ways, the Speaker of the Assembly, in pure politics, may have more power than the Governor. . . . Willie has an awful lot of power, and none of the headaches of being governor. Ed Meese Chief of Staff to Governor Ronald Reagan, 1967–1975" To understand how he ran things, just imagine a pyramid of patronage with Brown on top: The party cost $250,000 to stage, but not a cent came out of Brown's pocket. Brown raised the money from corporations, trade groups, and others with business in the Legislature. The food and booze also came free of charge: California wineries delivered a truckload crammed with one hundred cases of wine. San Francisco's best eateries, the finest on earth, provided delicacies to match. "I am hell-bent on enjoying every minute of my life," Brown proclaimed in an interview with GQ magazine. "So I do not mistreat myself. I make very few sacrifices. I live my dreams." Not everyone was impressed with Brown's stupendous excess. David Roberti peevishly stayed away, giving his ticket to a Burbank city council-woman. The prickly Senate leader was in a snit over Brown listing himself on the invitation as "Speaker of the Legislature." Roberti fulminated that the Legislature had two houses and Brown was Speaker of only one. "You should bill yourself accordingly," Roberti huffed in a letter to the Speaker. Roberti was technically correct; Brown was the leader of only one house of one branch of state government. But nobody that night cared about Roberti's civics lesson, much less his pride. In the world of politics, there really was only one Speaker of the Legislature, and that was Willie Brown. He was the most powerful politician in the Capitol, and arguably in the entire state. Willie Brown was more than that; he was the P.T. Barnum of California politics, the best show in a state that relentlessly produced bland, blow-dried political leaders. Brown's flamboyance, however, hid another reality. The bashes were one more method for Brown to spin his web of power, tying other politicians, interests groups, campaign donors, and power brokers to himself. Lobbyists, corporate executives, and union officials paid for everything so that they could don a tuxedo or a formal gown and rub elbows with Brown and his friends. Brown was allegedly "treating" them to his party, and everyone played along with the facade. The end result was the same. Those who wrote checks expected, and got, the attention of the Speaker and a place at the negotiating table when the party was over. Brown got their money and used it to fuel an election machine that kept his friends and allies elected to the Assembly. His friends, in turn, kept him elected Speaker. The whole edifice was based on a simple principle: keeping Assembly members happy. As long as Brown could keep forty-one members happy, he could remain Speaker. As long as he was Speaker, the checks kept coming, and Assembly members remained happy. "Don't ever misread me—ever," Brown once said in the middle of a challenge to his leadership. "I always have forty-one votes. Always." Few understood or appreciated how accurate he was. https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft0m3nb07q&chunk.id=d0e8441&toc.depth=1&toc.id=d0e7567&brand=ucpress https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft0m3n... After he was term limited out -- and that proposition was basically written against him (which is why it also reduced the number of "aides") -- he became mayor of San Francisco and got a reduced allotment of about 100 mayor appointed positions and that's where Kamala came into the picture, no doubt working it to get a position in the DAs office. But in fairness to her, it would be hard to get any valuable position in SF unless Willie signed off. Look at any notable CA politician and they are one or at most two steps away from Willie and his machine. They all owe Willie something. When it comes to playing politics, Brown’s protégés learned from the best. In Sacramento, opponents complained he routinely flouted conflict-of-interest laws, representing clients who had business in the capital, but FBI investigations went nowhere, earning him the nickname “Slick Willie,” a moniker Brown wore proudly. He also called himself the “ayatollah of Sacramento” — vote with him, and you were rewarded with perks. Cross him, and you were banished to a basement office. Brown’s escapades were so infamous that, after meeting Brown in 1992, future president Bill Clinton quipped, “Now I’ve met the real Slick Willie.” https://www.marinatimes.com/dpw-boss-mohammed-nuru-finally-swept-to-the-curb-but-not-by-mayor-breed https://www.marinatimes.com/dpw-boss-mohammed-nuru-finally-s... For a long time, almost nothing happened in California that he didn't have his hands in, and a good chunk of what did happen was used to either line his pocket or cement his power, and sometimes both. Brown would find a way to do both with remarkable ease. The position of SF mayor was almost retirement for him, and it came at just the right time, when the city was booming with dot-com money, going on a building spree, and Willie set up a special power group consisting of the city's biggest tech companies that he would meet with -- something like the old Phoenix Forty, in order to keep the gravy train going. My guess is that a big reason why SF became popular with techies is because of Willie wrangled them to increase office space there. In the beginning, all the tech was in sunnyvale/MV, and didn't really go up to SF. SF was where the techies would drive to in order to party on weekends, but the office was a big campus in Santa Clara county. Willie played a big role in changing that, as well in remodelling the cap on city hall, emblazoning it with gold (probably brass, but the symbolism was clear - gold rush!). Here is a pic of Brown and his Fundraiser (who became baby-mama in 1999): https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/LOVE-AND-MONEY-Mayor-s-fund-raiser-got-millions-2565511.php https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/LOVE-AND-MONEY-Mayor... But his current gf is Sonya Molodetskaya, however at this point I'm not sure she does more than keep him warm at night, like King David in his twilight years. Sonya became a fasion icon in SF and I think became an editor of some magazine, but not sure. https://heavy.com/news/2019/01/sonya-molodetskaya-willie-brown-partner/ https://heavy.com/news/2019/01/sonya-molodetskaya-willie-bro... In dot-com 2.0, sniffing opportunity again, he also ended up on the boards or as a paid consultant for some of the ride-sharing outfits. I remember seeing Willie a few times when he was mayor. He would spend a lot of time attending high class parties or driving down market street or some other notable street like Haight in his limo, with the Brioni suits, a cigar, and the current blonde. Music blasting, sometimes talking to people out of his limo. Also known for the hats. It was like a cartoon. But the guy has a joie-de-vivre and fantastic political instincts. He knows the system better than anyone else, and played it like a fiddle. And the machine he set up is still going -- if you want to build something or bid on something, you better pass a white envelope to someone who owes Willie. That machine will keep going long after he's dead. Last I checked, he had his own column in the Chronicle, "Willie’s World", doing political commentary. The FBI has tried multiple times to hit the machine. Once during the "shrimp boy" scandal, they got a wiretap and recorded some of the conversations by the officials: "You got to pay to play here. We got it. We know this. We are the best at this game … better than New York" https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/in-shrimp-boy-drama-connection-to-earlier-fbi-probe-of-pay-to-play-in-city-hall/ https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/in-shrimp-boy-drama-connecti... But nothing ever happened except a few low-level officials. And after the election of 2020, no more indictments have been handed out. Willie Brown wins again. https://www.marinatimes.com/the-city-family-is-a-machiavellian-tragedy https://www.marinatimes.com/the-city-family-is-a-machiavelli... https://www.marinatimes.com/cronyism-is-still-alive-and-well-at-city-hall https://www.marinatimes.com/cronyism-is-still-alive-and-well...
  - aeneasmackenzie 5y ago
    That’s not why. Better your cheap scammer than your enemy’s anything.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    If you look at the polling for all these “bulletproof” politicians, most of their supporters recognize that they’re dishonest. It’s about tribal identity and pissing off the other side.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - tw04 5y ago
    Ted Cruz won his last reelection campaign 50.9% to 48.3%. with the supposed mass influx of people from California I'd say he's anything but bulletproof.
    - protomyth 5y ago
      The people moving from a blue state to a red state because they feel the people running the blue state screwed up are going to keep voting blue? I've never understood that logic.
      - geofft 5y ago
        Presumably there are people in the world with a finer-grained view of things than "blue" and "red", such as centrists, people sympathetic to progressive social views but not a fan of progressive economic views, people hurt by Prop 13 in particular, etc. (It is certainly possible that such people are working to improve their home state and the only people actually moving have a dualistic view of politics, though.)
        protomyth 5y ago
        The politicians who had progressive social views but who were not in favor of progressive economics are long gone from the political scene. There are only red and blue left. Witness the demise of the Blue dog Democrats with one vilified exception.
    - gyc 5y ago
      Eh. I suspect besides housing prices, a significant amount of people also move to Texas because of political preferences. Also according to exit polling (as unreliable as it can be, so take it for what it's worth), Beto O'Rourke actually won the native Texan vote over Ted Cruz.
- briandear 5y ago
  Can we name and shake the politician I’m the White House that said that vaccinated people can’t get Covid? While we are naming and shaming, let’s not forget the one that deserves shaming the most for spreading that ridiculous lie.
  - bigbluedots 5y ago
    What about whataboutism?
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      You cannot use an argument of whataboutism in politics (well, you can, but it doesn't have any effect). It isn't applicable in any way. It just establishes that one bad deed doesn't excuse another. But in a political context when the topic is mutual standards of behavior, it can be justified because that overrides the determination if an action is ethical or not. On the contrary it can be abused as a rhetorical trick to only let objections be permitted if the sender is flawless if the accuser takes the lead in pointing out mistakes.
SilasX 5y ago
From by the submission a few days ago, this comment linked a substack that claimed they couldn’t make it an official union action because it was about the vaccine mandates. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28825929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28825929
- wyldfire 5y ago
  This source does not seem like a credible one. If someone who has some real stake to lose by reporting unsubstantiated claims makes this kind of a report, I would have an easier time believing it. But this is just some website that I didn't know existed before today. It could just as easily be some bogus report on Blind or any other anonymous site and I would have just as much trouble believing it. Think of a million other news reports you have heard where a union or CEO makes claim X/Y/Z and a news agency refers to a specific individual (or airs an interview with a disguised voice/appearance individual) who contradicts those claims.
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    Alex Berenson is famous for lying and distorting facts [1] [2] [3], so frankly the fact that he's claiming this makes me less inclined to believe it. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-wrongest-man/618475/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-... [2] https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/alex-berenson-attacks-the-vaccine-that-will-end-the-lockdowns/ https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/alex-berenson-attacks-... [3] https://reason.com/2021/08/30/alex-berenson-twitter-ban-vaccine-covid/ https://reason.com/2021/08/30/alex-berenson-twitter-ban-vacc...
    - JosefZlotea 5y ago
      Berenson rightly called the vaccine efficiency drop with actual data and was castigated for it. These outlets are more fixated on character assasination rather than hash out his arguments because that's so cool nowadays.
      - 5y ago
ed25519FUUU 5y ago
One side effect of our toxic national discourse is that I don’t know who to believe. Disinformation abounds and lies or lies of omission should be expected from anyone in a position of power and influence.
- knownjorbist 5y ago
  This is exactly the strategy adopted by the GOP in the runup to 2016 and onwards. The exhaustion is the point. Literally just lie and keep lying until most people tune out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood
  - conductr 5y ago
    > the GOP True but trending that direction for a long while. I feel like one person in particular really gave them a leap forward and had been a blatant liar his entire life. Anyone care to guess who?
    - beeboop 5y ago
      Hillary Clinton? My point being is that both sides are full of liars. They're politicians, they're famous for it
      - knownjorbist 5y ago
        How can any serious person compare the level of honesty between the two?
      - mbg721 5y ago
        More importantly, in this political environment, people are voting against candidates, not for them. Any view of Republican voters as a personality cult misses that conservatives have spent decades in hold-your-nose-and-vote mode.
      - conductr 5y ago
        If we’re being honest, citizens want them to lie to some extent. The want a visionary president to say they’ll fix all the world problems in a way that is acceptable to their voters. The voters completely ignore than no one person can do much of anything. They will be at the mercy of the government process and the people within. All with competing objectives. But, when asked during a debate, what will you do during your first 100 days in office, you can say “it depends” which would be the honest answer. That said, lying and weaponizing misinformation are two completely different things. Bill Clinton lied about cheating on his wife. Trump lied every single thing. This is the guy that drew over the Hurricane map because he knew better where the hurricane was heading. When you apply that alternate reality to things like questioning the election results and whatnot it’s quite a different level of dishonesty.
shadilay 5y ago
The union and company are merely denying that they have done anything illegal. Not surprising. Pilots strikes have to be approved by the National Mediation Board. Any job actions including sick outs are very illegal. The last time a major airline had a strike authorized it lasted for 24 minutes before they were ordered back to work by President Clinton. The media have done an atrocious job covering this story. Gell-Mann amnesia is in full effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Mediation_Board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Mediation_Board The first 7 minutes of this video are very relevant to the Southwest situation. Your Pilot Career and Scope Clauses - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XYpZg0SPCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XYpZg0SPCE
- op00to 5y ago
  How can something be “very” illegal? Either it’s illegal or it’s not. Please note inserting qualitative modifiers like “very” indicates that the speaker has no actual evidence for their stance and subconsciously use words like very to build confidence.
  - shadilay 5y ago
    The distinction I was making was between laws that are enforced an those that are not.
Animats 5y ago
Yes, if both management and the union say there wasn't a job action, there probably wasn't. The Washington Examiner seems to be one of the parties that made this up.[1] [1] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-airlines-should-call-bidens-bluff https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-airlines-shou...
- TeeMassive 5y ago
  > if both management and the union say there wasn't a job action, there probably wasn't. This is just making an uninformed opinion based on the apparent factional interests of an organization. Both can have an interest of denying it. For example, management don't want to scare off investors and stocks to go down and it is not in the interest of the union legally to admit that it initiated such a collective action, especially while they are in court for a case relating vaccine mandates. It is also fair to doubt what is officially said given deceptive claims that the weather caused them to stay grounded even if it didn't affect other airlines and that airliners fly above most adverse weather conditions.
  - p_l 5y ago
    Weather regularly grounds airlines - the problem is not weather in flight, the problem is weather at specific airports, and with how southwest flight graph is constructed the knock on effects can be huge (it's also why in hub-spoke setups you have huge investments into making hubs capable of dealing with extreme weather)
    - TeeMassive 5y ago
      Which still doesn't explain why other airlines operating at these ports didn't experience this kind of large scale disruptions and why no weather maps were shown (as far as I know) to back up these claims.
      - p_l 5y ago
        Other airlines were disrupted, but not to the same level, due to different level of dependance on said stop. The second most affected airline IIRC had Jacksonville as minor stop, and out of all impacted, only Southwest used what they call "line flow" flight planning. Which results in Southwest being the only one to end up with stuck planes that were supposed to service a many routes way further away. Most low-cost airlines operate on a sort of "distributed hub-and-spoke" (many small hubs instead of one/few big ones), with plane going bidirectionally on a route to non-hub airport before any route switching happens. This means that so long as the "hub" isn't severely impacted your disruption is somewhat contained and you still have access to a fleet of planes&crews that can be reassigned. A pattern like this: H->A->H->B->H->C->H ;; H = "Hub"; A,B,C - spoke airports Disruption at A,B, or C doesn't block unrelated flights, only disruption at H. Southwest instead flies like this A->B->C->D->E->F->G If B is in any way blocked, flights B->C, C->D, D->E, E->F, and F->G are all going to be disrupted, possibly without replacements plane/crew combinations available. If the disrupted airport has a lot of overlapping "lines" like that, the disruption quickly turns catastrophical. Also, appears that at least some approaches were manually vectored recently at KJAX, which isn't fun if there's a shortage of controllers.
lanevorockz 5y ago
As someone that has been involved in political events, sometimes this could be an agreement to avoid more damage to the company. The truth usually doesn’t come out unless there is a leak.
EricE 5y ago
I personally know of several pilots who are using up their sick time in anticipation of a showdown over the vaccine mandates. Southwest has been running with a pretty shallow pool of pilots for some time, and COVID made the problem a lot worse. Furthermore pilots who opted (or were opted) to idle have to be re-certified before they can rejoin the pool of active pilots and training is overwhelmed and backed up. Juan Browne does a much better job than my ham fisted attempt - and a WAY better job of going into detail than this superficial article too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO39nIcuPhQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO39nIcuPhQ BTW he is an active commercial pilot so he knows a bit of which he speaks and isn't just scraping content from elsewhere and resummarizing.

slg 5y ago

>But instead it seems as if disinformation is spinning current events to change perception about the Executive's new policy. Sadly, even after it's fact-checked - people won't remember the fact that it was bogus nor will they count it as a strike against the source that reported it. What might help us remember is to name and shame the people responsible. Ted Cruz claimed to have heard this from multiple people including the leader of the union who you quoted denying it.

rPlayer6554 5y ago
Source on this?
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
Some politicians are bulletproof to "name and shame", their supporters will even blank out or excuse away that they did something shameful... Because if those supporters admit (ultimately to themselves) that the people they voted for were cheap scammers, how does that look on their self-belief that they're intelligent people? They'd rather twist reality to not shatter said self-belief.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  I will never understand the career of Willie Brown. Literally hundreds of fake mayor jobs, many of which were assigned to mistresses, massive theft of public funds, legendary and brazen corruption, and yet he's still a well-loved figure.
  - jet_32951 5y ago
    Bingo. Slick Willie was 99% into self-dealing through one hustle or another, yet few figured it out.
  - shuckles 5y ago
    Some of the scams are still ongoing, to boot.
  - da_big_ghey 5y ago
    Some of those jobs went to people who now have power, former mistress with some such job is now Vice President. So no surprise in there.
  - TrispusAttucks 5y ago
    For those unfamiliar with this [1] politician. Interestingly, Willie was also in a romantic relationship with now Vice President Kamala Harris prior to her political assent. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Brown_(politician) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Brown_(politician)
    - wyldfire 5y ago
      'dissent' is an antonym of assent. I think you mean 'ascent', like you do on stairs.
      - TrispusAttucks 5y ago
        Yep. Was on mobile. Looks like post is locked now. Thanks for clarification.
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      That Kamala was involved with him is remarkable only in that usually Willie was seen with a tall, leggy blonde, so she wasn't his type. Most of his mistresses he would find government jobs for -- when he was speaker of the house, Willie had over 1000 full time "aides", but they weren't primarily mistresses, most were pure political patronage positions, to keep the power base growing. Brown was in absolute control of the Assembly, "In many ways, the Speaker of the Assembly, in pure politics, may have more power than the Governor. . . . Willie has an awful lot of power, and none of the headaches of being governor. Ed Meese Chief of Staff to Governor Ronald Reagan, 1967–1975" To understand how he ran things, just imagine a pyramid of patronage with Brown on top: The party cost $250,000 to stage, but not a cent came out of Brown's pocket. Brown raised the money from corporations, trade groups, and others with business in the Legislature. The food and booze also came free of charge: California wineries delivered a truckload crammed with one hundred cases of wine. San Francisco's best eateries, the finest on earth, provided delicacies to match. "I am hell-bent on enjoying every minute of my life," Brown proclaimed in an interview with GQ magazine. "So I do not mistreat myself. I make very few sacrifices. I live my dreams." Not everyone was impressed with Brown's stupendous excess. David Roberti peevishly stayed away, giving his ticket to a Burbank city council-woman. The prickly Senate leader was in a snit over Brown listing himself on the invitation as "Speaker of the Legislature." Roberti fulminated that the Legislature had two houses and Brown was Speaker of only one. "You should bill yourself accordingly," Roberti huffed in a letter to the Speaker. Roberti was technically correct; Brown was the leader of only one house of one branch of state government. But nobody that night cared about Roberti's civics lesson, much less his pride. In the world of politics, there really was only one Speaker of the Legislature, and that was Willie Brown. He was the most powerful politician in the Capitol, and arguably in the entire state. Willie Brown was more than that; he was the P.T. Barnum of California politics, the best show in a state that relentlessly produced bland, blow-dried political leaders. Brown's flamboyance, however, hid another reality. The bashes were one more method for Brown to spin his web of power, tying other politicians, interests groups, campaign donors, and power brokers to himself. Lobbyists, corporate executives, and union officials paid for everything so that they could don a tuxedo or a formal gown and rub elbows with Brown and his friends. Brown was allegedly "treating" them to his party, and everyone played along with the facade. The end result was the same. Those who wrote checks expected, and got, the attention of the Speaker and a place at the negotiating table when the party was over. Brown got their money and used it to fuel an election machine that kept his friends and allies elected to the Assembly. His friends, in turn, kept him elected Speaker. The whole edifice was based on a simple principle: keeping Assembly members happy. As long as Brown could keep forty-one members happy, he could remain Speaker. As long as he was Speaker, the checks kept coming, and Assembly members remained happy. "Don't ever misread me—ever," Brown once said in the middle of a challenge to his leadership. "I always have forty-one votes. Always." Few understood or appreciated how accurate he was. https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft0m3nb07q&chunk.id=d0e8441&toc.depth=1&toc.id=d0e7567&brand=ucpress https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft0m3n... After he was term limited out -- and that proposition was basically written against him (which is why it also reduced the number of "aides") -- he became mayor of San Francisco and got a reduced allotment of about 100 mayor appointed positions and that's where Kamala came into the picture, no doubt working it to get a position in the DAs office. But in fairness to her, it would be hard to get any valuable position in SF unless Willie signed off. Look at any notable CA politician and they are one or at most two steps away from Willie and his machine. They all owe Willie something. When it comes to playing politics, Brown’s protégés learned from the best. In Sacramento, opponents complained he routinely flouted conflict-of-interest laws, representing clients who had business in the capital, but FBI investigations went nowhere, earning him the nickname “Slick Willie,” a moniker Brown wore proudly. He also called himself the “ayatollah of Sacramento” — vote with him, and you were rewarded with perks. Cross him, and you were banished to a basement office. Brown’s escapades were so infamous that, after meeting Brown in 1992, future president Bill Clinton quipped, “Now I’ve met the real Slick Willie.” https://www.marinatimes.com/dpw-boss-mohammed-nuru-finally-swept-to-the-curb-but-not-by-mayor-breed https://www.marinatimes.com/dpw-boss-mohammed-nuru-finally-s... For a long time, almost nothing happened in California that he didn't have his hands in, and a good chunk of what did happen was used to either line his pocket or cement his power, and sometimes both. Brown would find a way to do both with remarkable ease. The position of SF mayor was almost retirement for him, and it came at just the right time, when the city was booming with dot-com money, going on a building spree, and Willie set up a special power group consisting of the city's biggest tech companies that he would meet with -- something like the old Phoenix Forty, in order to keep the gravy train going. My guess is that a big reason why SF became popular with techies is because of Willie wrangled them to increase office space there. In the beginning, all the tech was in sunnyvale/MV, and didn't really go up to SF. SF was where the techies would drive to in order to party on weekends, but the office was a big campus in Santa Clara county. Willie played a big role in changing that, as well in remodelling the cap on city hall, emblazoning it with gold (probably brass, but the symbolism was clear - gold rush!). Here is a pic of Brown and his Fundraiser (who became baby-mama in 1999): https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/LOVE-AND-MONEY-Mayor-s-fund-raiser-got-millions-2565511.php https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/LOVE-AND-MONEY-Mayor... But his current gf is Sonya Molodetskaya, however at this point I'm not sure she does more than keep him warm at night, like King David in his twilight years. Sonya became a fasion icon in SF and I think became an editor of some magazine, but not sure. https://heavy.com/news/2019/01/sonya-molodetskaya-willie-brown-partner/ https://heavy.com/news/2019/01/sonya-molodetskaya-willie-bro... In dot-com 2.0, sniffing opportunity again, he also ended up on the boards or as a paid consultant for some of the ride-sharing outfits. I remember seeing Willie a few times when he was mayor. He would spend a lot of time attending high class parties or driving down market street or some other notable street like Haight in his limo, with the Brioni suits, a cigar, and the current blonde. Music blasting, sometimes talking to people out of his limo. Also known for the hats. It was like a cartoon. But the guy has a joie-de-vivre and fantastic political instincts. He knows the system better than anyone else, and played it like a fiddle. And the machine he set up is still going -- if you want to build something or bid on something, you better pass a white envelope to someone who owes Willie. That machine will keep going long after he's dead. Last I checked, he had his own column in the Chronicle, "Willie’s World", doing political commentary. The FBI has tried multiple times to hit the machine. Once during the "shrimp boy" scandal, they got a wiretap and recorded some of the conversations by the officials: "You got to pay to play here. We got it. We know this. We are the best at this game … better than New York" https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/in-shrimp-boy-drama-connection-to-earlier-fbi-probe-of-pay-to-play-in-city-hall/ https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/in-shrimp-boy-drama-connecti... But nothing ever happened except a few low-level officials. And after the election of 2020, no more indictments have been handed out. Willie Brown wins again. https://www.marinatimes.com/the-city-family-is-a-machiavellian-tragedy https://www.marinatimes.com/the-city-family-is-a-machiavelli... https://www.marinatimes.com/cronyism-is-still-alive-and-well-at-city-hall https://www.marinatimes.com/cronyism-is-still-alive-and-well...
- aeneasmackenzie 5y ago
  That’s not why. Better your cheap scammer than your enemy’s anything.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  If you look at the polling for all these “bulletproof” politicians, most of their supporters recognize that they’re dishonest. It’s about tribal identity and pissing off the other side.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tw04 5y ago
  Ted Cruz won his last reelection campaign 50.9% to 48.3%. with the supposed mass influx of people from California I'd say he's anything but bulletproof.
  - protomyth 5y ago
    The people moving from a blue state to a red state because they feel the people running the blue state screwed up are going to keep voting blue? I've never understood that logic.
    - geofft 5y ago
      Presumably there are people in the world with a finer-grained view of things than "blue" and "red", such as centrists, people sympathetic to progressive social views but not a fan of progressive economic views, people hurt by Prop 13 in particular, etc. (It is certainly possible that such people are working to improve their home state and the only people actually moving have a dualistic view of politics, though.)
      - protomyth 5y ago
        The politicians who had progressive social views but who were not in favor of progressive economics are long gone from the political scene. There are only red and blue left. Witness the demise of the Blue dog Democrats with one vilified exception.
  - gyc 5y ago
    Eh. I suspect besides housing prices, a significant amount of people also move to Texas because of political preferences. Also according to exit polling (as unreliable as it can be, so take it for what it's worth), Beto O'Rourke actually won the native Texan vote over Ted Cruz.
briandear 5y ago
Can we name and shake the politician I’m the White House that said that vaccinated people can’t get Covid? While we are naming and shaming, let’s not forget the one that deserves shaming the most for spreading that ridiculous lie.
- bigbluedots 5y ago
  What about whataboutism?
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    You cannot use an argument of whataboutism in politics (well, you can, but it doesn't have any effect). It isn't applicable in any way. It just establishes that one bad deed doesn't excuse another. But in a political context when the topic is mutual standards of behavior, it can be justified because that overrides the determination if an action is ethical or not. On the contrary it can be abused as a rhetorical trick to only let objections be permitted if the sender is flawless if the accuser takes the lead in pointing out mistakes.

SilasX 5y ago

From by the submission a few days ago, this comment linked a substack that claimed they couldn’t make it an official union action because it was about the vaccine mandates. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28825929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28825929

wyldfire 5y ago
This source does not seem like a credible one. If someone who has some real stake to lose by reporting unsubstantiated claims makes this kind of a report, I would have an easier time believing it. But this is just some website that I didn't know existed before today. It could just as easily be some bogus report on Blind or any other anonymous site and I would have just as much trouble believing it. Think of a million other news reports you have heard where a union or CEO makes claim X/Y/Z and a news agency refers to a specific individual (or airs an interview with a disguised voice/appearance individual) who contradicts those claims.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  Alex Berenson is famous for lying and distorting facts [1] [2] [3], so frankly the fact that he's claiming this makes me less inclined to believe it. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-wrongest-man/618475/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-... [2] https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/alex-berenson-attacks-the-vaccine-that-will-end-the-lockdowns/ https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/alex-berenson-attacks-... [3] https://reason.com/2021/08/30/alex-berenson-twitter-ban-vaccine-covid/ https://reason.com/2021/08/30/alex-berenson-twitter-ban-vacc...
  - JosefZlotea 5y ago
    Berenson rightly called the vaccine efficiency drop with actual data and was castigated for it. These outlets are more fixated on character assasination rather than hash out his arguments because that's so cool nowadays.
    - 5y ago

ed25519FUUU 5y ago

One side effect of our toxic national discourse is that I don’t know who to believe. Disinformation abounds and lies or lies of omission should be expected from anyone in a position of power and influence.

knownjorbist 5y ago
This is exactly the strategy adopted by the GOP in the runup to 2016 and onwards. The exhaustion is the point. Literally just lie and keep lying until most people tune out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood
- conductr 5y ago
  > the GOP True but trending that direction for a long while. I feel like one person in particular really gave them a leap forward and had been a blatant liar his entire life. Anyone care to guess who?
  - beeboop 5y ago
    Hillary Clinton? My point being is that both sides are full of liars. They're politicians, they're famous for it
    - knownjorbist 5y ago
      How can any serious person compare the level of honesty between the two?
    - mbg721 5y ago
      More importantly, in this political environment, people are voting against candidates, not for them. Any view of Republican voters as a personality cult misses that conservatives have spent decades in hold-your-nose-and-vote mode.
    - conductr 5y ago
      If we’re being honest, citizens want them to lie to some extent. The want a visionary president to say they’ll fix all the world problems in a way that is acceptable to their voters. The voters completely ignore than no one person can do much of anything. They will be at the mercy of the government process and the people within. All with competing objectives. But, when asked during a debate, what will you do during your first 100 days in office, you can say “it depends” which would be the honest answer. That said, lying and weaponizing misinformation are two completely different things. Bill Clinton lied about cheating on his wife. Trump lied every single thing. This is the guy that drew over the Hurricane map because he knew better where the hurricane was heading. When you apply that alternate reality to things like questioning the election results and whatnot it’s quite a different level of dishonesty.

shadilay 5y ago

The union and company are merely denying that they have done anything illegal. Not surprising. Pilots strikes have to be approved by the National Mediation Board. Any job actions including sick outs are very illegal. The last time a major airline had a strike authorized it lasted for 24 minutes before they were ordered back to work by President Clinton. The media have done an atrocious job covering this story. Gell-Mann amnesia is in full effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Mediation_Board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Mediation_Board The first 7 minutes of this video are very relevant to the Southwest situation. Your Pilot Career and Scope Clauses - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XYpZg0SPCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XYpZg0SPCE

op00to 5y ago
How can something be “very” illegal? Either it’s illegal or it’s not. Please note inserting qualitative modifiers like “very” indicates that the speaker has no actual evidence for their stance and subconsciously use words like very to build confidence.
- shadilay 5y ago
  The distinction I was making was between laws that are enforced an those that are not.

Animats 5y ago

Yes, if both management and the union say there wasn't a job action, there probably wasn't. The Washington Examiner seems to be one of the parties that made this up.[1] [1] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-airlines-should-call-bidens-bluff https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-airlines-shou...

TeeMassive 5y ago
> if both management and the union say there wasn't a job action, there probably wasn't. This is just making an uninformed opinion based on the apparent factional interests of an organization. Both can have an interest of denying it. For example, management don't want to scare off investors and stocks to go down and it is not in the interest of the union legally to admit that it initiated such a collective action, especially while they are in court for a case relating vaccine mandates. It is also fair to doubt what is officially said given deceptive claims that the weather caused them to stay grounded even if it didn't affect other airlines and that airliners fly above most adverse weather conditions.
- p_l 5y ago
  Weather regularly grounds airlines - the problem is not weather in flight, the problem is weather at specific airports, and with how southwest flight graph is constructed the knock on effects can be huge (it's also why in hub-spoke setups you have huge investments into making hubs capable of dealing with extreme weather)
  - TeeMassive 5y ago
    Which still doesn't explain why other airlines operating at these ports didn't experience this kind of large scale disruptions and why no weather maps were shown (as far as I know) to back up these claims.
    - p_l 5y ago
      Other airlines were disrupted, but not to the same level, due to different level of dependance on said stop. The second most affected airline IIRC had Jacksonville as minor stop, and out of all impacted, only Southwest used what they call "line flow" flight planning. Which results in Southwest being the only one to end up with stuck planes that were supposed to service a many routes way further away. Most low-cost airlines operate on a sort of "distributed hub-and-spoke" (many small hubs instead of one/few big ones), with plane going bidirectionally on a route to non-hub airport before any route switching happens. This means that so long as the "hub" isn't severely impacted your disruption is somewhat contained and you still have access to a fleet of planes&crews that can be reassigned. A pattern like this: H->A->H->B->H->C->H ;; H = "Hub"; A,B,C - spoke airports Disruption at A,B, or C doesn't block unrelated flights, only disruption at H. Southwest instead flies like this A->B->C->D->E->F->G If B is in any way blocked, flights B->C, C->D, D->E, E->F, and F->G are all going to be disrupted, possibly without replacements plane/crew combinations available. If the disrupted airport has a lot of overlapping "lines" like that, the disruption quickly turns catastrophical. Also, appears that at least some approaches were manually vectored recently at KJAX, which isn't fun if there's a shortage of controllers.

lanevorockz 5y ago

As someone that has been involved in political events, sometimes this could be an agreement to avoid more damage to the company. The truth usually doesn’t come out unless there is a leak.

EricE 5y ago

I personally know of several pilots who are using up their sick time in anticipation of a showdown over the vaccine mandates. Southwest has been running with a pretty shallow pool of pilots for some time, and COVID made the problem a lot worse. Furthermore pilots who opted (or were opted) to idle have to be re-certified before they can rejoin the pool of active pilots and training is overwhelmed and backed up. Juan Browne does a much better job than my ham fisted attempt - and a WAY better job of going into detail than this superficial article too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO39nIcuPhQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO39nIcuPhQ BTW he is an active commercial pilot so he knows a bit of which he speaks and isn't just scraping content from elsewhere and resummarizing.