Showing posts with label Transportation Secretary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Transportation Secretary. Show all posts

Monday, June 26, 2023

GOP Senators move to stop Buttigieg from using private jets, creating huge carbon footprint and wasting our money



The Republicans put forth a bill in the Senate to stop high ranking Department of Transportation officials from using private government planes for which taxpayers foot the bill. Among these mega-carbon footprint princes and princesses is Secretary Pete Buttigieg [pronouns: zir, zhe, zizzlepop]. 

"Secretary Buttigieg seems averse to traveling on the very commercial airlines that his department oversees. It’s far past time that Secretary Buttigieg travel commercially instead of wasting taxpayer dollars on private jet flights," Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), told Fox News Digital, a former conservative news outlet.

"It will also fix a loophole to bring more transparency in reporting the costs of these flights," Schmitt added. The "loophole" refers to a cost-calculating policy the DOT uses which he said had been used to make travel cost for officials appear cheaper than it was, his office said.

Schmitt hopes the bill will "make Secretary Buttigieg consider the most fiscally responsible option when flying on official business."

The legislation would also stop Zhe Buttigieg and other DOT officials from using private flights except for in times of emergency or if such a flight is projected to cost at least 5% less than a commercial alternative.

Since taking office and taking time off to nurse zir's baby zir shares with another dude, Buttigieg has taken taxpayer-funded jets no less than 18 times.

Buttigieg traveled hither, thither and yon — visiting Florida, Ohio and New Hampshire, among other states — and out of the country using a private jet fleet managed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), according to flight tracking data. The flight records align with Buttigieg's schedule of external and public engagements obtained by government watchdog group Americans for Public Trust (APT).

When his predecessor in the Trump administration, Elaine Chao, took the same jets on seven occasions in 2017, the left wanted to have her stoned and eviscerated as it cost taxpayers almost $94,000, as Politico reported at the time. Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price was forced to quit after he reported took 26 private jet flights that same year, which cost taxpayers $1.2 million.

The DOT’s Inspector General announced earlier this year that he would be looking into the flights after a letter from Sen. Marco Rubio, (R-FL) Buttigieg claimed to welcome the probe in a statement posted to Twitter, but if you think anyone welcomes a government looking into your covert behavior, you are clearly low on Xanax.

"Glad this will be reviewed independently so misleading narratives can be put to rest. Bottom line: I mostly fly on commercial flights, in economy class. And when I do use our agency’s aircraft, it’s usually a situation where doing so saves taxpayer money," zizzlepop said.



Friday, February 24, 2023

Pothole Pete won't tell us why it took 3 weeks to show up at East Palestine



When you don't know the name of the U.S. Transportation Secretary, that is the definition of a good one. It's not unlike a good baseball umpire or NFL referee--they do such a good job, you don't get to see them before a problem is solved, because they solve the problems before they get out of hand.

Then there's Pete Buttigieg.

As most people are aware, on February 3rd of this month, a catastrophic train derailment led to a vinyl chloride spill and fire in the small Ohio town named East Palestine [pronounced 'Palesteen'. A containment fire was started to handle the spill but it did more harm than good. But the EPA and a few Democrats said the water was safe to drink, but didn't bother to test their 'science' by taking a drink themselves. 

Meanwhile, the Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, was nowhere to be found in the mostly White, Republican town in Ohio.

The public was livid that Pete didn't bother to come to assure the townsfolk, assess the damage and do an overview of the situation, and they said so on social media. It finally got Buttigieg's attention and he thought he better get his butt to the site.


However, when on Thursday he was asked by the press why it took him one day shy of three weeks to get to East Palestine, he refused to explain. He ignored press inquiries and his own press secretary also refused to answer the questions in front of the cameras.

Turning Point USA reporter Savanah Hernandez posted footage of Buttigieg’s visit to East Palestine, asking the useless Transportation Secretary why it took him nearly three weeks to visit the area.

“Why did it take you an entire two and a half weeks to actually get here to respond to East Palestine? Will you apologize to the residents of this city for the slow response,” she asked as the incompetent Buttigieg ignored her, walking away, Biden style. 

A woman then approached Hernandez, identifying herself as Buttigieg’s press secretary.

“I don’t want to be on camera, please,” she said, offering to answer questions on the condition that cameras were off. After all, the public doesn't have the right to know what their government is doing.

Hernandez asked again why it took the Alfred E. Neuman lookalike so long to respond to the disaster, but his press secretary refused to answer because of the presence of cameras and the fear of accountability to the people they are sworn to serve.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to do this on camera,” she said as other reporters jumped in.

“I’m happy to talk to you guys off camera,” she said as Hernandez asked her a question again.


“I’m happy to have a conversation with you. I do not want to be on camera,” the press secretary responded. A man then told members of the press to put the cameras away, to which Hernandez responded it was a public area, and they were, therefore, allowed to have them rolling. 

Imagine, a so called press secretary censoring the press. Anyway, Ms. Hernandez tweeted:
I asked Sec. Buttigieg why it took him almost 3 weeks to come and speak to residents of East Palestine.

His press Secretary then told me I was aggressive for trying to ask questions on camera: pic.twitter.com/bOB52DIq0O

— Savanah Hernandez (@sav_says_) February 23, 2023
It turns out that Buttigieg's visit to East Palestine came a few days after he said he would visit when "the time is right." By that he meant whenever he was pressured into visiting the disaster. But not so coincidentally, it appears, his visit came merely one day after former President Donald Trump visited, handing out truckloads of water and buying McDonald's for first responders.

“We’re like a third-world nation, and this is an example of it, the breakdown. Our whole country is breaking down,” Trump said during his visit with East Palestine residents, adding that Buttigieg “should have been here a long time ago.”

I disagree with Trump: Buttigieg should have been gone, a long time ago. Or better yet, he should have never gotten the job in the first place because it was only because he is gay and married to a guy, that the Biden administration appointed him. He was a failure as the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and is a failure as Transportation Secretary.


Thursday, February 23, 2023

BREAKING: NTSB announces cause of East Palestine train derailment



The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has completed its preliminary report as to what caused the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. 

The train was carrying chemicals that caused a toxic spill and created an ecological disaster that has until now, been totally ignored by the federal government and national media. For example, it took 3 weeks and a lot of public pressure to get Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to leave his husband and travel to Ohio.

Chickens and fish have died, people have sore throats and rashes, while government officials are claiming that it's okay to drink the water. Rep. J.D. Vance (R-OH) dared them to drink it themselves, but so far they've passed on the offer. Now the EPA has changed their tune and warn residents to avoid well water.

The cause of the derailment, according to the  NTSB on Thursday, was an overheated wheel bearing. And while we can't directly blame Pete Buttigieg for the disaster [who blames former President Donald Trump], we can at least point out how little involvement he was willing to take as Transportation Secretary, and his arrogant avoidance of answering questions by media that's willing to challenge him over his not handling the situation.

“NTSB investigators have identified and examined the rail car that initiated the derailment. Surveillance video from a residence showed what appears to be a wheel bearing in the final stage of overheat failure moments before the derailment,” investigators said.

“The wheelset from the suspected railcar has been collected as evidence for metallurgical examination. The suspected overheated wheel bearing has been collected and will be examined by engineers from the NTSB Materials Laboratory in Washington, D.C.”

The wheel bearing suspected of overheating rose from a temperature of “38°F above ambient temperature” to a temperature of “103°F above ambient” as it passed three monitors designed to alert crews of such conditions.

The train's crew was notified by an automated system to stop the locomotive and inspect the car with the overheated bearing. It did so but it was too late as the train left the tracks before it could be stopped and the vinyl chloride spilled all over the area.

“After the train stopped, the crew observed fire and smoke and notified the Cleveland East dispatcher of a possible derailment,” the NTSB said. “Responders arrived at the derailment site and began response efforts.”

Efforts to put out fires failed over the following two days, and a decision was made to start a controlled burn of the vinyl chloride, causing a toxic mushroom cloud and an ill wind that did nobody any good.

“On February 5, responders mitigated the fire, but five derailed DOT-105 specification tank cars … carrying 115,580 gallons of vinyl chloride continued to concern authorities because the temperature inside one tank car was still rising,” the report stated.

“This increase in temperature suggested that the vinyl chloride was undergoing a polymerization reaction, which could pose an explosion hazard,” the NTSB stated. “Responders scheduled a controlled venting of the five vinyl chloride tank cars to release and burn the vinyl chloride, expanded the evacuation zone to a 1-mile by 2-mile area, and dug ditches to contain released vinyl chloride liquid while it vaporized and burned.”

And on February 23, fully twenty days after the tragedy, Pete Buttigieg, a possible Democratic presidential hopeful for the future, finally got off his butt and visited the area.

Monday, February 13, 2023

Privileged White guy tells crowd White construction workers take jobs from non White people



The former Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, from 2012 to 2020 was unable to fix his town of potholes and in 2019, the South Bend Tribune reported that many in the town felt it had the "worst pothole situation in the state." In fact, the Tribune reported one year earlier that potholes at the time were the worst area repair shops had seen in “over 10 years." Lines of vehicles reportedly awaited repair for pothole damages every day.

Today, Buttigieg has been assigned as Secretary of Transportation, mainly because he likes trains and is gay, but over the Christmas and New Year's holidays, his incompetence at the job became as obvious as President Biden's mental status. 

It was reported by Fox News that Buttigieg was doing nothing to solve the problems that took place in that time frame and he wasn't even being a stay-at-home mom for his baby he and his husband adopted because men can't have babies, even if the left says they can.

At a Monday conference, Buttigieg was true to form, claiming that construction sites are not employing local workers in minority communities and 'outsourcing' to White people.

Using Buttigieg's logic, if buildings are being constructed in a majority White community, say Manhattan's Upper West Side, then there should be hardly any Black construction workers. I don't know about you, but to me that seems racist.

During the National Association of Counties Conference, White, gay Buttigieg urged those in attendance to work with their contractors and community colleges to build a workforce that reflects the community.

Why? 

Shouldn't the most skilled people, regardless of their immutable characteristics, gender, sexual orientation, or political beliefs be given the job? 

But now the battle cry on the Left is 'equity.' See how that's working out for us.

We have a guy who can't do his job. From the Ohio train disaster in early February, to the massive airline cancellations, to the potholes of his old town, Buttigieg has failed up. And for him to lecture us on who companies should hire, companies that have nothing necessarily to do with what he was hired to do, is an insult on our intelligence. This guy tried to make the case that our roadways are racist!

How screwed up is that statement?


Friday, December 30, 2022

Buttigieg in September: airline issues would "get better" by holidays


Transportation Secretary Peter Buttigieg said in September that he was increasing pressure on airlines. He told this to insomniacs who stay up late to watch "The Late Late Show with James Corden."

Well, that didn't work out so well for travelers over the Christmas holidays as many thousands were stranded at airports while Pete chest-fed his baby as his husband sat by proudly watching. [Just kidding--men can't chest-feed because they aren't women, the only gender who can.]

Now he's being blasted for his response to the airline clusterfrack after assuring Americans that air travel issues would improve before the holidays, proving talk is cheap and that he got the job mainly because he's gay.

In the September TV appearance Buttigieg said he was increasing pressure on U.S. airlines after travelers experienced an expensive and chaotic summer.

"I think it's gonna get better by the holidays," the incompetent clueless transportation secretary said at the time. "We’re really pressing the airlines to deliver better service. So many people have been delayed, been canceled, it happened to me several times this summer. And the fact is they need to be ready to service the tickets that they're selling."

"If you've ever been mistreated by an airline, if they haven't given you the refund they owe you, if they haven't lived up to their customer service obligations, we will have your back," he claimed. "We went from zero of the top 10 airlines committing that they're going to provide a meal or hotel, for example, to eight out of 10 doing it. So we're pushing them."

This week, Buttigieg called on Southwest Airlines to fully compensate customers for travel, meal and lodging expenses after thousands of flights were canceled and travelers were left stranded at airports over the holidays.

Buttigieg is taking heat from both sides of the political aisle over the situation and his inability to handle it.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) told Sean Hannity that Buttigieg should increase pressure on Southwest Airlines and audit to see how billions in taxpayer-funded relief the company received was spent. She explained that her role on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee was a main reason to her need in finding answers to the problem as well as the fact that her own kids were stranded at BWI Airport in Baltimore on Christmas Eve.

"[T]his hit close to home, because my kids my teenage kids got stranded in Baltimore trying to make it home on Christmas Eve. And even today, five days later, we still don't know where their luggage is right now," she said. "And so we've been personally impacted by this."

Isn't it always most important to politicians when they are directly affected by the policies they voted for? Had this happened to Pete Buttigieg's husband, things would likely have been different.

Beth Van Duyne (R-TX), agreed with Mace's sentiments, asserting to Hannity that Buttigieg is unqualified to serve in his current role, pointing to the supply chain crisis early in his tenure, [and the unfilled potholes in South Bend, Indiana where he was mayor].

"Earlier this year, we had the rail strike potential looming over us," Van Duyne said. "We were going to have, again, I mean, a massive amount of hit to our economy. You're going to have municipalities that couldn't get chemicals to be able to treat their water supply. And where was Pete? Oh, that's right. He was on a family vacation in Portugal."

"This is a man who was not qualified for the job, has never really been on the job," she added. "And we've trusted him with $1.2 trillion worth of taxpayer dollars."

The Alfred E. Neuman 'what, me worry?' impersonator was warned by Democrats in his own party about concerns within the airline industry before Southwest’s mass cancelations. 

"The problems at Southwest Airlines over the last several days go beyond weather," Sen. Maria Cantwell, (D-WA) the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee on Commerce, said in a statement Tuesday. "The committee will be looking into the causes of these disruptions and its impact to consumers."

Cantwell, along with Democratic Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and stolen valor perpetrator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) filed a comment in November to the Department of Transportation on the need to hurry its process to finalize a rule to ensure that consumers are properly refunded for cancelations and get accommodations.

In August, a bipartisan group of 38 state attorneys general wrote to Congress saying that Buttigieg was failing to adequately respond to airline consumer complaints, and they asked for legislation to allow states to enforce federal consumer protection laws.

"Americans are justifiably frustrated that federal government agencies charged with overseeing airline consumer protection are unable or unwilling to hold the airline industry accountable and to swiftly investigate complaints submitted to the US DOT," read the letter signed by Arizona’s Mark Brnovic, New York’s Letitia James and others.

The Senate Commerce Committee stated that it would investigate Southwest for the cancelations, but not Pete Buttigieg because he falls into a victim status category. 

Friday, February 11, 2022

Where is our so-called Transportation Secretary--he's MIA as protests shut bridges



Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, was on paternity leave with his husband after adopting a child and nobody knew he was gone for two months. Now former South Bend, Indiana mayor who couldn't even get the town's potholes filled, is missing in action once again. But hey, he's gay, so leave him alone.

The transportation crisis Buttigieg is not dealing with this time is the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge going from Detroit, MI to Windsor, Ontario by Canadian protesters who oppose Canada's mandates for truckers over the vaccine. Funny, there was no problem with truckers delivering goods during the height of the pandemic before a vaccine was produced, and they have nobody in their truck cabs to infect if they had the coronavirus, but it isn't about logic or science; it's about [or a boot, as they say in Canada] politics and the power that mandates provide a-hole politicians who put them in place.

The Ambassador Bridge carries about 25% of all U.S.-Canada trade and millions of dollars are being lost due to the blockade. Think of the food products on trucks that are getting spoiled, for example.

Traffic opened from Canada to the U.S., but traffic from the U.S. to Canada remained closed because Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau doesn't care about the working class person, and he also happens to be an unintelligent chuckle-head.

Truckers had already blockaded the road linking the western province of Alberta with Montana, and reports are emerging of other potential blockades that are springing up.

Toyota, the car company currently using woke cop-hating racist Colin Kaepernick in their recent ad that claims he played in two Super Bowls, will not produce vehicles at their three Ontario plants this week. Boo freaking hoo. 

The Ford Company is also halting some production as they aren't able to get certain parts and material.

The Ambassador Bridge is effectively shit down. The Blue Water is slowed. Peace Bridge may shut this weekend.
Good jobs may leave Ontario forever. Bad look for those supporting #FreedomConvoy2022

— Brian Lilley (@brianlilley) February 10, 2022

Then again, good jobs may later return to Ontario once face-diapers are removed, restaurants can open normally, and people can get out and shop.

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Meanwhile, Secretary Buttigieg has been mute about the situation and the Department of Transportation has voiced nothing about the blockades as well. Pete has been more concerned about Florida and a bill that is yet to be signed into law, that prohibits sexuality from being taught to children in "primary" grades. The House Plant in Chief, Joe Biden, mistakenly calls it the "Don't Say Gay" bill because his brain is stuck.

The only mention Buttigieg made about truckers has nothing to do with the current situation, but was about how the Biden administration plans to hire more veterans in trucking jobs.

If the Democrats doing even marginally well in the 2022 mid-term elections, that will be the GOP's fault. There is no excuse to vote for these idiots.



Friday, October 15, 2021

Buttigieg shows same expertise as he did as Mayor of South Bend: zilch

"What? Me worry?"

With the handling of Biden coronavirus pandemic, the nation's supply chain is in crisis mode due to many economic factors, such as vaccine mandates that are putting people out of work, flights being canceled, truckers not available to truck goods to stores, and the quitting of jobs is at an all time high. 

Thankfully, we have Pete Buttigieg, our illustrious, highly qualified Transportation Secretary who loves the smell of airports in the morning, and the bouncy sound of cars hitting potholes in South Bend, Indiana where he was their not so great mayor.

South Bend is a city of about 100 thousand people, maybe 60 or so buses, no big-time railways, and less than 100 full-time transit employees. [H/T Fox News]

But for a person with senile dementia and who was never very bright even before his brain became caramelized, a guy like Pete was a perfect fit for a guy like Joe Biden. Sure, 100 employees is not the same as the government's 58,000, but who's counting? Just because that number is over half the population of the entire town of South Bend doesn't mean Pete Buttigieg isn't on the job. 

I think it is Paw Patrol who says there's no job too big or too small for those pooches to handle. While Pete's budget skyrocket from $10 million to $85 Billion, he's got it handled. And if Joe Biden likes him for the job, why not boobie?




While hundreds, literally hundreds of ships sit dormant off our coasts, unable to deliver goods to the country since they cannot quickly unload their cargo, and when they finally reach port there is a shortage of dock workers to get the ships unloaded, Buttigieg is home with his husband since August basking in the glow of father and fatherhood of their new arrivals via an actual woman.

And until now, nobody knew that he has been on paternity leave since freaking August!

If nobody knew and nobody cared, how important is his job?

But if his job is important, why the hell is he shirking it? 

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The answer is obvious: the media is not going to call him to task. When they finally questioned him about the supply chain debacle, he went on the Communist News Network and plugged our House Plant in Chief's infrastructure socialist plan known laughingly as Build Back Better.

Don't you worry, however, our missing Transportation Secretary said he's talking about the problem to others at a round, not a square, table and they will come up with a plan, which hopefully works better than the South Bend pothole solution that never materialized when this idiot was the mayor. 

Words don't fix potholes or move cargo any better than they fix inflation, the crime surge, and the problems in Afghanistan, China, Russia and the Middle East.



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