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Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse
I'm a little confused by this. Maybe things are different where I'm from (eastern Canada) but here we view it as a negative when a national official like a prime minister or other government minister uses their position to show favoritism to their local region. We often use the term "pork barrel politics" which is considered a form of soft corruption. Not hard (illegal) corruption but still undesirable. The complaint is that federal governments should be representing all parts of the country equally. Basically making impartial decisions based on the merits of a project and local need without politicians letting their personal connection to a place influence them.
But you seem like you're complaining that Biden didn't do that?
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I figure that Canada is a little different when it comes to politics in that the House of Commons PMs is basically an electable position while the Senate is an appointed position. There's corruption in both America and Canada, it's just that in America, it's a much bigger country than Canada and corruption is much more magnified in the States than in Canada.
It wouldn't surprise me if Harper did something for Calgary & the rest of Alberta the way somebody like the Trudeaus do for Quebec, and to a certain extent, French Canadians outside of Quebec, and other politicians like Pearson & Diefenbarker had done for Ontario. It's how you get elected and I don't understand how you can do absolutely nothing for your city and state/province and get elected. I don't really see it as corruption, per se, but the fact that constituents in your own backyard have to suffer and practically get nothing
It's not the job of prime ministers to only do just for their respective alone, that's the responsibility of the provincial prime ministers to vouch for their provinces, the PMs for their ridings, and finally, the mayors of their cities to vouch for proper funding depending on how big their cities are. The prime minister represents Canada, and I notice that the biggest pushback from Trudeau comes mainly from the Prairie Provinces, especially Alberta.
I understand Canada does things different than America and that's your system, but I'd be even more disappointed in Biden if he couldn't do something for the small state of DE. If he does nothing of merit for PA, you can take the title away of "PA's third senator" away & just call him a entrenched political hack who had the privilege of holding a US Senate office for 36 years before being elected as Vice President w/ Obama. The fact that there's very little action in Biden's "other state" of PA as well of Buttigieg doesn't reflect well on both men.
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Originally Posted by Busy Bee
Take the heat for what though? The previous administrations loosening of safety regulations? The decades long lobby against sensible hazmat and crew/precision railroading regulations pulled off by the private freight railroad corporations at the expense of public safety? The conditions, deferred maintenance to rolling stock, lack of safety equipment and lack of crew that allowed a toxic derailment in which the private company purposefully released toxic gas over a small town and then subsequently proceeded to quickly bury the the toxic sludge so they could reopen the line with the only obvious concern being profit and Wall St? That's Biden's fault? That's Buttigieg's fault? That's the EPA's fault? Buttigieg should have shown up with a magic wand that removed greed as the primary motive out of the equation? And Biden is "inept" because.... why exactly? What was he supposed to do exactly? If his Ukraine trip wasn't right in the middle of it should there have been a visit like is customary with tornados/hurricanes/earthquakes and other natural disasters or all too frequent mass shootings? Sure, I guess. But it's undeniable the local trumper base in the area was going to try to make it, as they already have, some cynical political issue to make the administration look incompetent for doing just as much or more than any reasonable person would acknowledge would have been done under previous administrations or the last disgrace of a presidency.
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It's Biden's mess, whether he wants to blame Trump of not, it happened under Biden's watch. It's going to be funny seeing MA, CT, NY (birth state), NJ, PA, MD, IL, MN, & especially CA lose districts, and maybe this time around OH & MI may hold on for 2030 since both states have lost too much in political power and the reason why I use the term funny is only because when you have high taxes, high real estate prices, and so many regulations you cannot run a business, people vote with their feet meaning that people move out of their old states and into states with less regulation and less taxes, and it looks like FL, TX, and maybe TN, SC, ID, and UT are winning because hose states continue to post double digit growth while the blue states are just declining.
It's also sad in a way, because PA needs more congressmen due to the fact that we have a growing Latino and Asian population. I'd love to see a Latino congressman come out of PA, whether it be from Philadelphia or the Lehigh Valley, but the old way of running PA is going to cost Democrats a lot of valuable votes from those two demographic, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Latino and Asian Republicans in the future.
David Oh (whom I don't really like) is a perfect example of an Asian Republican, and as for Latinos, Michael Rivera of the Berks County Board of Commissioners, & Lisa Colon, Controller of Lancaster County, are just a good example of Latino Republicans in PA.
Whether it's Norfolk Southern's fault (which it is) or Biden's or Buttigieg's fault, the point of the matter is that regardless of whether it's a liberal base or a conservative base, you have to take into account the destruction of wildlife and ecology in the OH/PA border along East Palestine, as well as the contamination of drinking water, which will affect that area, which is the much bigger issue than just the derailment.
I'm pointing the finger at both the private (NS) & the public (Biden and Buttigieg for not taking some accountability by just showing up). It also seems like you're treating the people of East Palestine as all rabid MAGA supporters, when even in those areas, you do have Dem supporters, and because of the inaction by the federal gov't, even those Dem supporters have been let down by this administration. It's a bad look for Biden/Buttigieg and blaming Trump, who's officially out of office, isn't going to solve he problem of the derailment and the drastic contamination of the water in East Palestine and even that part of PA.
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Originally Posted by Busy Bee
In regards to your last couple sentences. The federal government doesn't maintain or use public funds to invest in a private railroads infrastructure. It doesn't work that way. If you want to improve rail infrastructure you either mandate through regulations a higher standard requirement or you nationalize the infrastructure and charge access fees to fund the maintenance/modernization/expansion of the rail infrastructure i.e. the road of many other first world peers.
Please stop with the "both parties do it" wishy washy bothsidesisms. It's just not accurate.
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I just told you that it's the TSA's responsibility of maintaining the regulation for public, commuter, and private rail. Which part did you not read??? You sound too damn partisan, and too dumb not to read the entire post when I said that the TSA has to maintain the regulations and if the regulations are too little, since Biden's now in power, and Buttigieg is the TSA Secretary, it was the responsibility of Buttigieg & Biden's agenda to follow up on that by adding more regulations if they felt that Trump's loosening of regulations wasn't going to help passenger and freight rail. In your world, it's as if Biden can do no wrong when he's done almost everything wrong but push the red missile button to Russia.
Five banks total have failed under this administration, plus inflation is rampant and the economy is worsening. It seems like you placed all your chips on Biden when it looks like those chips will soon be gone as the ball will land on the wrong color. It also seems like you though Biden was going to do a much better job on the economy than Trump, and I guess only the smart and prudent ones know how that's worked out.
I just want to know what Biden had really done for PA & his home state of DE? I may not live in the US anymore, but I do follow up from time to time, and I've listened to the French, Dutch, and Spanish media, and a lot of them aren't confident in Biden to really defeat Russia. In other words, it's buyers remorse from those countries, and Putin's just too strong, which should garner condemnation fro the International Court, but you wouldn't know it because you only rely on MSNBC & CNN for your news while I'm looking at different sources to assess how the US is running it's country.
I'd rather not drink the blue Kool Aid all the time and I don't even drink the red Kool Aid because even they can be biased, I'll just settle for a nice, tall, cold glass of water while both parties destroy themselves and point fingers at themselves and the "orange man". Have a nice economy & a nice country while you're at it, because I'm so tired of American politics in general!
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