Quote:Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has been on family leave since August, and no one in the Biden administration seemed to care. According to White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, the meltdown at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are problems caused by the previous administration, and they are “tackling” it.
Or something.
From POLITICO:
While U.S. ports faced anchor-to-anchor traffic and Congress nearly melted down over the president’s infrastructure bill in recent weeks, the usually omnipresent Transportation secretary was lying low.
One of the White House’s go-to communicators didn’t appear on TV. He was absent on Capitol Hill during the negotiations over the bill he had been previously helping sell to different members of Congress. Conservative critics tried (unsuccessfully) to get #WheresPete to trend and Fox News ran a story on October 4 with the headline: “Buttigieg quiet on growing port congestion as shipping concerns build ahead of holidays.”
They didn’t previously announce it, but Buttigieg’s office told West Wing Playbook that the secretary has actually been on paid leave since mid-August to spend time with his husband, Chasten, and their two newborn babies.
“For the first four weeks, he was mostly offline except for major agency decisions and matters that could not be delegated,” said a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation. “He has been ramping up activities since then.” As he does that, Buttigieg will “continue to take some time over the coming weeks to support his husband and take care of his new children,” the spokesperson added.
I would be curious to hear the responses from the peanut gallery if Buttigieg were a female Secretary of Transportation who was also part of a Republican administration.
I’ll wait….
In the midst of what is a true transportation infrastructure crisis, when the head of the transportation arms of our nation should be giving insight and working on solutions, Howdy Doody Buttigieg is deer in the headlights, talking about everything but the supply-chain issues.
Buttigieg made sure he tweeted about “Indigenous People’s Day” and Climate resilience.
It took a minute after his return from maternity leave for this feckless cabinet member to actually begin talking about the crisis the people of our nation are actually concerned about, and wouldn’t you know it? Buttigieg managed to fail spectacularly with each appearance. His appearance on CNN with Brianna Keilar was particularly egregious, as Buttigieg made a poorly timed, and ill-conceived joke about late Christmas shoppers.
Since Oct. 7, Buttigieg has appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” “MSNBC with Geoff Bennett,” CNN’s “New Day,” CNBC’s “Morning Bell,” Bloomberg TV’s “Balance of Power,” and the NPR Politics Podcast. He participated in virtual events to promote the infrastructure bill with the Commercial Club of Chicago and the Citizen Budget Commission of New York. He also attended a high-profile meeting with President JOE BIDEN Wednesday on supply chain bottlenecks.
So basically, Buttigieg is as useful as he was when we didn’t know he was on maternity leave.
I am convinced that much of this is staged. Part of the Biden administration’s “Build Back Better” agenda is enhanced family leave, and not just for those other birthing people. The timing of Buttigieg and his husband Chasten having children, and the timing of this infrastructure bill that Biden desperately wants passed being on the chopping block, are suspect.
Of course, POLITICO has to end its article with a plug for this new way of being.
Buttigieg’s time away to help care for his children is the latest example of paid leave for new parents becoming more common in the United States, even at the highest levels of government.
Also suspect is the fanfare over Buttigieg’s return to Washington, D.C. As if coming back to do your job is supposed to get you a parade. Buttigieg flew through O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, and just happened to run into IL Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Milker)
“Spotted.” Right….
Overly glossy optics and useless gestures seem to be hallmarks for this administration. So far, the Secretary of Transportation has not been doing his job, and he may as well have just stayed home, as Mr. Mom may well be the role for him. Handling the nation’s transportation infrastructure certainly is not.
If you think we have a supply chain issue now, just wait until Mayor Pete shows up to work.
Also, The SECRETARY of a whole f*ing department doesnt need to take 2 months off for paternity in the middle of a sh*tstorm, especially when his partner didnt push anything out of his orifice. And if you do need to be out, resign the position so that someone else can handle the issues.
(This post was last modified: 10-15-2021 02:12 PM by UofMstateU.)
Wow, Buttichug takes months off for the adoption with his partner. My daughter was born and we spent 5 weeks in the ICU, 1 week at home and then I basically had to get my @ss back to work. It must be nice to be part of the establishment elite.
This sums up where I’m at best (sorry Tweet not posting)
“Imagine starting a new job and six months later you’re like “I need to take three consecutive months off” and then nobody even notices you’re gone while your section turns into a dumpster fire”
Quote:The Biden three-ring circus had another strong week, America, with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as the star attraction for most of the week. Buttigieg, the first openly gay cabinet secretary, had been on paid paternity leave — along with husband Chasten Buttigieg after the couple adopted two infant twins.
Among GOP lawmakers, political pundits, the public, and organizations condemning Buttigieg for being “MIA” during the ever-worsening Biden Supply Chain Crisis, the Log Cabin Republicans — America’s largest, conservative LGBTQ group — blasted Buttigieg’s prolonged absence in a Friday statement:
Buttigieg is the second openly-gay cabinet secretary, but he is the first to fail at his job. Amid an unprecedented supply-chain crisis that is ripping apart America’s economy, Buttigieg went MIA from the Department of Transportation for nearly two months.
(Buttigieg is the first official openly gay cabinet secretary. The group apparently referenced Ric Grenell, Donald Trump’s acting director of national intelligence.) The Log Cabin Republicans statement continued:
It’s clear he doesn’t respect the gravity of his job, but even if he had showed up for work, it wouldn’t have made a difference —Pete Buttigieg was and remains completely unqualified to lead the Department of Transportation and was clearly hired by Joe Biden because he was gay and the Left prioritizes identity politics and wokeism.
If the DC media wasn’t so in the tank for Joe Biden and the Left, this story would have been reported weeks ago. Instead, it’s alarming that a cabinet secretary in Joe Biden’s Washington can leave work for weeks, and no one in the Washington press corps notices.
Ouch. And 100 percent correct.
Buttigieg had been absent during a months-long cargo ship/trucking crisis, which has led to empty store shelves, prompting “Empty Shelves Biden” to go viral. As reported by Breitbart, the cost of goods around the country has soared recently, adding to inflation and setting consumer prices skyrocketing, according to data from the Labor Department. But, hey — what’s one more Biden crisis?
So, why the controversy, beyond the obvious MIA of “Mayor Pete”?
“They didn’t previously announce it,” Buttigieg’s office told Politico’s West Wing Playbook. “The secretary has actually been on paid leave since mid-August to spend time with his husband, Chasten, and their two newborn babies,” desperately trying to cover Buttigieg’s ass adding:
“For the first four weeks, he was mostly offline except for major agency decisions and matters that could not be delegated. He has been ramping up activities since then.” As he does that, Buttigieg will “continue to take some time over the coming weeks to support his husband and take care of his new children.”
On cue, and correctly so, Fox News host Tucker Carlson blasted Buttigieg’s absence, mocking the AWOL cabinet secretary:
“Paternity leave, they call it, trying to figure out how to breastfeed, no word on how that went.”
Yeah, let’s not go there.
So Buttigieg dutifully showed up on PMSNBC MSNBC to defend himself during an appearance with the ever-silly host, Nicolle Wallace — and Wallace’s predictable Slobberpalooza was on.
Finally, what did Ric Grenell have to say on Twitter about the self-created, Buttigieg mess?
It’s clear Pete Buttigieg was hired because he’s gay. After 6 months on the job he takes 2 months off?! This is what we get when Cabinet hires are made according to the woke rules of identity politics.
Amen, Ric.
Incidentally, Biden’s “twofer” — black and female — vice president was unavailable for comment, no doubt off somewhere making fake, cringeworthy videos or sampling more tasty treats.
Meanwhile, no word if Pete and Chasten are planning to add to their family in the future.
Quote:There’s an iconic scene from the movie Braveheart in which King Edward Longshanks, the declining tyrant who serves as the villain of the show, returns from warring in France to find his kingdom at threat from William Wallace’s Scottish rebels. The Scots have sacked the city of York and sent the severed head of the garrison commander home in a bucket.
And Longshanks’ foppish son, who was put in charge of the Scottish problem, is awfully nervous about the accounting his father’s return brings.
It’s hard not to recall the scene when examining the worsening situation of our national supply chain, in which hundreds of thousands of shipping containers are sitting idle on ships anchored off California ports and in warehouses and distribution facilities while shelves at stores — and worse, at groceries and supermarkets — begin to empty.
And Thursday, what was inevitable became reality when Republicans on Capitol Hill began pointing the finger at America’s version of Prince Edward, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Buttigieg is a rather queer choice for Transportation Secretary. Not just because he’s a member of the LGBTQ community, and obnoxiously so. Buttigieg ran for president in 2020 not so much on the strength of his accomplishments, of which there were none; he was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, a college town of 100,000 people which exists more or less to service the University of Notre Dame and largely runs itself except for its peculiarly elevated murder rate during his time in office. He ran on the fact that he is openly, and obnoxiously, gay — the central precept of his campaign being that Christians objecting to his lifestyle were bad at religion while he is not.
This interesting brew of queer sanctimony and absence of any demonstrable executive success was strangely attractive to the Democrat base electorate, so much so that Buttigieg fared far better than many of the more accomplished contenders in the 2020 primary field like Tom Steyer, Mike Bloomberg, Andrew Yang or even Kamala Harris.
As such, Buttigieg was given the job of Transportation Secretary without any particular reason to think he could do it. Somewhat like Prince Edward had the defense of the realm dropped in his rather leaky lap.
The results have been predictable, though the optics around them have not. We were always going to have supply chain challenges given the disruptions from COVID-19 and the bad public policy decisions arising from them. But naturally, the emanations and penumbras from the Green New Deal being put in place in places like California have all but destroyed the trucking industry, and COVID lockdowns haven’t made things any better. While the supply chain situation was bad even before the Biden administration took office, every decision it has made has failed to improve things.
Now, Biden has Circleback Girl Jen Psaki admitting they’ve ruined Christmas, the president is stumbling through speeches calling for the Port of Long Beach to be open 24/7, prices are skyrocketing and American retail is beginning to take on a Venezuelan feel.
Which led Sen. Tom Cotton to open up on Buttigieg…
Pete Buttigieg couldn’t organize a one car funeral—he’s not going to organize our ports, railroads, highways, and airports. pic.twitter.com/Fh0NjbgGFx
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) October 14, 2021
It’s worse than all this, though, because Buttigieg isn’t even working his job. Not that he’d be any good at it if he was making an effort, but he’s phoning it in while all this is going on.
Do you remember this?
Chasten and I are beyond thankful for all the kind wishes since first sharing the news that we’re becoming parents. We are delighted to welcome Penelope Rose and Joseph August Buttigieg to our family. pic.twitter.com/kS89gb11Ax
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) September 4, 2021
That was in early September. Buttigieg had been lollygagging and canoodling with his husband and their two newly adopted children for two weeks at that point. The administration put together a useless task force headed by a former Obama bureaucrat back in July and they’ve been hosting zoom calls since then to talk aimlessly about the supply chain problem.
But actually working the problem? Actually changing federal policies to, say, get truck drivers and stevedores back to work?
Hell, no.
It’s now mid-October and Buttigieg is still on paid leave while you can practically walk to China on the decks of the ships lined up from Long Beach. Sen. Marsha Blackburn blew up over that subject when interviewed by Breitbart this week…
We’re in the middle of a transportation crisis, and Pete Buttigieg is sitting at home. Meanwhile, cargo boats are unable to dock and shelves are sitting empty. Pete needs to either get back to work or leave the Department of Transportation. It’s time to put American families first.
It’s enough to recall the famous Braveheart scene. Except nobody is getting thrown out of that window.
And William Wallace is a good three years away.
Blackburn was actually too nice. In a sane world, Buttigieg wouldn’t have a choice to get out of that birthing bed (which, really?) and go back to work. In a sane world he’d have been thrown out of that window and somebody with some actual qualifications in transportation and logistics would be put in charge of DOT.
We don’t have that. We have an administration based on identity, not competence, and everything is falling apart as a result.
Let’s go, Brandon. Quickly, please.
(This post was last modified: 10-16-2021 03:12 PM by CrimsonPhantom.)
This is what you care about Trillion debt and deficit under dear leader didn’t move the needle but this matters? Priorities or principalities mean nothing anymore.
(10-17-2021 01:27 AM)gobluebigjon Wrote: This is what you care about Trillion debt and deficit under dear leader didn’t move the needle but this matters? Priorities or principalities mean nothing anymore.
I harken back to all of the winning we had under Trump. Can you name a single thing thats been considered "winning" since Captain Crappypants* took over?
(10-17-2021 01:27 AM)gobluebigjon Wrote: This is what you care about Trillion debt and deficit under dear leader didn’t move the needle but this matters? Priorities or principalities mean nothing anymore.
Unlike those of you on the radleft who are laser focused on hating everything America, we can actually care about more than one thing at a time and DON'T have to include our entire laundry list in 1 thread.
So yeah, we do care about this.
Please see all the other threads on this board for other stuff we care about.
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[NEWS] Buttigieg Returns to D.C. From Playing House
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