I’m delighted the Republicans have decided to slap a target on Pete Buttigieg’s back. I truly am. Because in the days ahead they’re going to find out they’ve underestimated the man. He is going to make them look like the hypocrites and fools that they are, unless I miss my guess.
Buttigieg must scare the living hell out of them, as a rising Democratic star, is all that I can surmise. So they seek to kneecap him.
I think it’s great that they’re doing this, they’re going to turn him into a luminary. Bring it on guys. Watch Mayor Pete play you like a fiddle.
Buttigieg: Well, the strange thing about hearing that from Senator Rubio is that the last time I had gotten a communication from him about railroad regulation was when he had signed a letter asking us to weaken our inspection practices. pic.twitter.com/RK0WVvfkmJ
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 24, 2023
And voila, here is what he’s talking about.
Four months before writing a letter demanding Sec. Buttigieg’s resignation over “intentional ignorance” in lack of oversight about the Ohio train derailment, Sen. Rubio co-signed a letter with 22 colleagues pushing for waivers to allow more automation in train inspections – pic.twitter.com/tO7hm2nA0p
— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) February 18, 2023
And then I love this.
Incompetence should not be accepted. Joe Biden should fire DOT Sec. Buttigieg and bring accountability to failures of his administration.https://t.co/bHIBzPeoCO
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 22, 2023
Mediocrity kills. If it did, Newt, you’d have been pushing up eons long ago. And if mendacity kills, you probably wouldn’t have made it to adulthood.
And of course there’s more. Mitch McConnell attacked Buttigieg from the floor of the Senate today. from the floor of the Senate today.
“Secretary Buttigieg has seemed more interested in pursuing press coverage for woke initiatives and climate nonsense than in attending to basic elements of his day job,” McConnell had said on the Senate floor.
Buttigieg noted that McConnell had no problem showing up in his home state of Kentucky when a major bridge was replaced under the Biden administration’s infrastructure law.
“I would not call the Brent Spence Bridge a ‘woke’ initiative,” Buttigieg retorted. “As for climate, climate is not ‘nonsense.’”
Buttigieg also encouraged McConnell to “be a partner to us, right now, in making sure there are fewer rail disasters in the future.”
“The freight rail industry has wielded a lot of power here in Washington. I would love to see Leader McConnell join us in standing up to them. There are specific things that could be done right now,” he said.
To be honest, I’m surprised that McConnell has jumped on this bandwagon, at least to this degree. But the fact that he has, indicates to me that McConnell sees Buttigieg as a threat, far beyond him being a convenient scapegoat in the rail disaster. I’m not even going to speculate what McConnell would be saying now if wifey was still head of DOT.
WATCH: @SecretaryPete responds to GOP criticism for handling of East Palestine disaster:
"The freight rail industry has wielded a lot of power here in Washington. I would love to see Leader McConnell join us in standing up to them." pic.twitter.com/EbDRPT4jyO
— CNN This Morning (@CNNThisMorning) February 28, 2023
There you have it. Buttigieg is composed and calm while mud is being slung his way from the GOP. I hope they don’t start throwing their feces, like their simian cousins in the zoos do, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
This is a major mistake on the part of the GOP to make this part of the culture war. I can’t overstate that. This should honestly be a bipartisan effort to reverse the things that got screwed up in Trump’s administration. But with comments like, “climate change nonsense,” I’m not going to hold my breath.
Rep. Mike Collins (GA-R) accused Buttigieg of being hired to “check a diversity box,” and called for him to be impeached Tuesday. This is going to be some shitshow.
They were effective in knee capping the “woman” (Hillary), now they are trying the same old shit with “the gay guy”. Thank God it’s Mayor Pete! That gentleman can hold his own because he’s twice the intellect of the entire GQP herd!
I love his comments and the very articulate way with which he delivers them. It’s the difference between reasonable and intelligent and angry school-children who did not get their way.
Newt forgets that it was his plan to cripple the federal government.
No, no, no! He never “forgets.”
He “conveniently ignores the unpleasant memory.”
And, given his target audience, they wouldn’t remember anything that happened ten minutes earlier (much less from twenty years ago). And when shown the evidence, they just ignore it or dismiss it as “fake news.”
DeWine is the one who had them dump and burn the toxins BEFORE the EPA could even get there. Gotta get those trains running again and who cares about the health and safety of the people who live there anyway? So how is this the Biden admins fault?
DeWine also delayed calling in the Feds. He said something about let the railroad clean it up. It’s pretty obvious where his loyalty lies.
Ursula, this is just a note about style. In the final paragraph of your essay, you wrote, “Rep. Mike Collins (GA-R).” The description of Collins’ party affiliation and state caught my eye, because it was different from what I’m used to seeing. (My only immediate reference for the traditional style is my Associated Press Stylebook.) The traditional description, according to the AP, would have been:
Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga.,
In my personal use, I would probably use the ZIP code abbreviation for the state, as you did:
Rep. Mike Collins, R-GA,
The more important information in most cases is the party not the state.