The noted homophobe Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is critical of Pete Buttigieg's use of government aircraft, saying he's flying to receive awards "for the way people have sex."
Transportation officials also said the total cost of Buttigieg’s flights on FAA planes up to that time was about $42,000. Chao took 15 FAA flights early in the Trump administration, and the cost of just one of them, which was international, was nearly $69,000, the Post reports.
It's good both are being investigated, but definitely seems like Pete's isn't that big of a deal compared to what Republicans do
I’m not convinced it is a good thing that both are being investigated if the investigation into Buttigieg is just political smearing. HRC’s emails show the cost of abusive investigations. Investigations aren’t cost free, either monetarily or in terms of public trust in institutions. It implies he did something worth investigating, and devalues the seriousness of real investigations, like those against Trump.
When the review was announced, Buttigieg had flown on FAA planes 18 times out of 138 flights for official trips since becoming secretary early in 2021, according to The Washington Post. He takes commercial flights most of the time, and when he uses FAA aircraft, it’s usually because it’s cheaper than commercial flights, a Department of Transportation spokeswoman said.
This does not seem to be something worth investigating.
If they investigate him, and everything is cool, then it's cool... Which is what the article sounds like.
If he's abusing it, just to a much smaller degree, then that's still an issue.
Like, that's the whole point of not just holding people from your "own team" accountable. If someone might be doing something wrong, you investigate them no matter who they are.
Do you think an investigation means a huge thing where he testifies in front of Congress? That's not an investigation.
As usual, republicans try to make democrats doing something normal seem like a huge scandalous deal while they and their sleazy-ass media hyenas entirely ignore what “their side” did or does.
I cannot wait until she falls into obscurity. Old and wrinkled sitting at a lonely table at a flea market gun show to sign photographs and nobody is paying her any attention.
But all the Republicans have is performative garbage.
And this is definitely performative. The salary change would need to go through the Senate and there's no way this passes. The House Republicans know this. They just want to "own the libz" by saying they'll reduce some salaries to $1.
What do you mean? They are. If we stopped paying Pete we'd have the current US debt payed off in about 149,052,132 years. Maybe add a few hundred thousand years for interest but I don't believe that's significant.
Watch it be something really fucking boring and sad like being arrested for drunk driving or some shit. Still though -- that mug shot is going to be priceless.
They should do that with the gop ans republicans, after all they get their money thanks to bribes and companies paying them to legislate in their favor
I mean, fuck Buttigieg, but this is a pretty dangerous precedent.
Edit: c'mon people. He didn't do anything after the East Palestine disaster, he makes excuses for why we can't have high speed rail or even just a better Amtrak, and he hasn't done anything to reduce car centric design. He's the god damn secretary of transportation.
he hasn’t done anything to reduce car centric design
In all fairness, this doesn't really fall under the purview of the Secretary of Transportation.
I think most urban design and planning happens at the local level, and the federal DoT is mostly responsible for allocating funds to state and local city governments.
And I think it's not hard to argue that he did quite a bit towards reducing car-centric design as a mayor. Mayors have WAY more control over that stuff, in general. The DOTs are the DOTs. They're going to be conservative and they're going to waste money. They also don't really follow federal marching orders.
Biden/Buttigieg have pushed for more Amtrak investment than has happened in a long time, though, along with proposals for further expansion for local rail and BRT service. Just a typical case study in a progressive failing the leftist purity test.
That's fair. I'm willing to concede that he doesn't have a major part to play in reducing car-centric design, though I think he could create general guidance for cities to follow
The vast amount of issues with capitalism in our country can be traced back to young idiots in their 20s working for McKinsey telling CEOs the best thing they can do in any situation is layoffs is raising CEO pay.
They've also worked for pretty much every evil organization, including the Saudi government
John Oliver just did an episode on it a few weeks ago.
It sucks that legitimate critism of democrats makes you sound like unhinged MAGA lunatic. Not that it's ever really gonna be a choice between fascism or their bebal incompetent feet dragging corruption, just a sad reality of our crappy two party system.
just a sad reality of our crappy two party system.
As an outsider, it looks like the US only has a one party system now. One party and a group of spiteful, contrarian fascists trying to overthrow its democracy.
I don't understand what you mean. He's in THE position to make changes to how this country handles transportation, and he hasn't done much of anything. He even made excuses for why trains can't have safer brakes or more stringent chemical safety requirements. I don't place the brunt of these issues on him, but he's doing fuck-all about them.
Public employees are exempt from the NLRA and it is not abnormal for an independently wealthy public sector employee to accept an appointment with a $1/yr wage. Also not covered are air/railway workers (who are covered under the RLA), agricultural workers who have some very weird and problematic coverage, and certain domestic workers/contractors for... some fucking reason and with some effect.
Never underestimate how much of a shithole the US is for labor.