…I’m pretty sure the Secretary of Transportation is one of the Cabinet offices, like Education and Energy, that we could get rid of tomorrow and nobody would notice.
But with that said:
If Trump were still president, and Elaine Chao were sitting on the sidelines during a national crisis squarely involving (for better or worse) her corner of the bureaucracy, I’m pretty sure we’d be hearing about it.
By the way – during the nomination process, it seemed Buttigieg’s main qualification was that he was kind of a train geek as a kid. Too bad he wasn’t a ship geek, like me (and most rural North Dakotans).
There’s one of those meme pictures floating around the webz: “Why is Buttigieg missing from work? Hey, c’mon, man! Unexpected pregnancies happen all the time!”
He’s using Maternity Leave, a benefit to which he’s entitled as compensation for thousands of years of repression by the patriarchy. His work will get done, just not right now, he’s got more important things to tend to like diapers and formula and colic, something all you rich white hetronormative cis-males know nothing about.
Why do you hate new mothers and want them to die?
To be fair to the guy, the main issue with supply chain is that other departments of the government have incentivized truckers, warehouse workers, and factory workers not to work. The DOT can’t fix that. Only the zero in the Oval Office can.
Just imagine Pete Buttigag and his husband sitting around nursing those two children. You know they are.
bike,
There is also the major issue of the California Commie’s ignorant emissions rules. Any independent trucker with truck older than 10 years old, is worried about being ticketed for polluting. Further, with diesel fuel pushing $6.00 per gallon, they get dinged there, too.
Regarding Petey Butthead, he couldn’t even get potholes fixed in South Bend, because he alienated every municipal department with his ignorance. Of course, just like every other left wing cabinet member, neither competence nor intelligence is required to be there.
On another note, all of us law abiding citizens can be very thankful that Merrick Garland isn’t on the SCOTUS.
“If Trump were still president….”
Trump has five kids and I would lay good odds he’s never changed a diaper.
I tweeted this: Is he waiting for his wife’s episiotomy to heal?
All these crises go straight to the top: to Biden’s incompetence and growing dementia. There seems to be no one in the Dem party who can act other than as a privileged prick.
I lived in MN in 1978. Gov. Wendel Anderson had appointed himself to the seat freed up when Mondale became Jimmy Carter’s veep. He was not popular. Then the BWCA was created in dead of night. It essentially killed any hope of replacing the dying iron mining industry with logging or copper mining. The Bill that created the BWCA was championed by Wendy Anderson.
News that the final, gerrymandered BWCA map included a “carve out” allowing motorboats on the lake where Anderson had a cabin was the final straw.
It was looking so bad for Wendy Anderson that Mondale flew in to campaign with him in Northern Minnesota. They made the mistake of attending a rally in Duluth, then in a deep economic down turn because the iron mines were dying.
Some of the DFl’rs chased Anderson and Mondale back to their limo. The mob then tried to flip the car (they failed).
In the ’78 elections, the DFL was almost completely wiped out.
After just nine months of Biden, I’m picking up a 1978 vibe. The Dems are incapable of accomplishing what they want to accomplish, and what they want to accomplish isn’t very popular.
Adopting a child takes months, often years. He knew that he was going to have to take months of leave just a few months after he accepted the office, and he knew that the job would be critical, given the pandemic.
What an f’n prick, and the people that think that abusing the country like this is okay are f’n pricks as well.
Is this important?
The trucking issue with California LA ports, ie the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and the Port of Long Beach (POLB), is that all semi tractors have to be current with new California emissions standards. As a consequence, that mean trucks cannot be older than 3 years if they are to pick up or deliver containers at those ports. This issue wipes out approximately half of the fleet trucks used to move containers in/out of the port. Operating the port 24/7 will not cure the issue, because all it does is pile up more containers that sit idle as they await a limited number of trucks to pick them up. THIS is the central issue.
C’mon, guys, he had a rough pregnancy.
Trump has five kids and I would lay good odds he’s never changed a diaper.
Relevance?
I don’t begrudge Buttigieg taking time off to spend with the new kid. In a well-run business, the guy at the top delegates work to competent people. That way, the work doesn’t suffer when the superheroes are on vacation. Considering the situation at the ports, whoever’s in charge at the Department of Transportation isn’t running things competently. Onerous restrictions on whom can pick up the cargo? Use the power of your office to suspend or waive those restriction. Too many ships and not enough capacity in the ports? Designate new ports of entry. Recall how Obama told us how he had a pen and a phone? When the s**t hits the fan, the president can use those tools to clear the obstacles. But the president has to have secretaries who can manage their department effectively. And if they need the big stick, they call the guy with the phone and the pen.
Anti-family conservatism is one of the least appealing flavors of conservatism. Sadly, this is a fairly consistent theme within the GOP.
^ That’s not a bad troll. Vague, smug, tendentious as always, without any actual points to discuss and dressed up in the bestest straw. I’d say 6, no, 7 outta 10.
Yeah, the whole “family values” that doesn’t value a family is kinda bizarre.
Sorry, but two husbands does not make a family to me.
Buttagieg has suddenly appeared on TV to complain that the real problem isn’t his voluntary absence from his critical job, the real problem is that Tucker Carlson is a bigot.
This kind of arrogance doesn’t sit well with voters.
^ Interesting that it was Trump who signed FMLA into law. Thanks whole episode so craven and lame. Woolly would be defending paternity leave if one of his guys was in the crosshairs.
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/trump-approves-paid-parental-leave-for-federal-workers.aspx
I’m glad Mayor Pete took a couple of months off and nobody noticed. Confirms what I suspected – his job is not ‘necessary’ and therefore should be eliminated.
I wonder how many other federal jobs are ‘no-show’ jobs which could be eliminated, or at least reclassified? If we need patronage jobs to reward Party members, couldn’t we put them in make-work positions where they can do no harm?
“Congratulations, you’ve been appointed to The Committee. As a member of The Committee, you’ll be paid handsomely and accrue federal benefits and pensions. Duties? No, my dear boy, there are no ‘duties’ for you to perform. You are Important. You Matter. You don’t need to come to the office; in fact, we don’t want you anywhere near the office. We’ll do the work, you just take the credit and stay out of our hair while we run the country.”
“If only something had been done about something that was not yet a problem before we sabotaged the recovery” is the most Republican take ever.
Emery is lost in his imagination again.
Here is a rational explanation for the anger over Buttagieg’s no-show job.
-Biden picks Buttagieg for a job for which he has no qualifying experience for one of the following three reasons (if you think there was another reason, LMK):
1) Biden wanted to appoint a gay to his cabinet to please the pro-gay arm of his party.
2) Biden saw Buttagieg as representing a young, up and coming force in his party and wanted to give him his first experience in a federal office.
3) Biden tends to surround himself with less than stellar people because he is insecure about his own intellect (cf his Kamala VP pick).
Buttagieg’s own party is dedicated to giving consumers money to get the economy back on track after the lock downs. A shortage of transportation workers was known back in January when Biden appointed Buttagieg to run the transportation dept.
And just as the economy starts to take off and shortages of items begin to appear, almost all due to transportation deficiencies, Buttagied takes two months so he he can bottle feed his adopted infant.
Any rational person would be angered at this derelection of basic duty, both on the part of Buttagieg and Biden.
They didn’t even appoint a person to temporarily replace Buttagieg. He was literally phoning it in for months.
This is incompetence at the highest level of the Biden administration; all of them — from the cabinet members to to the generals — seem more interested in promoting their career interests or their ideology than carrying out their duties on behalf of the American people.
^ Why didn’t Buttigieg pull the Fix It Lever is quite the Republican take.
You are the only commenter talking about Butagieg failing to fix the problem, Emery.
Just as you are the only commenter here to mention “Trump” (three times, so far).
So… fixing things is bad?
Most people would be shy about telling people they don’t care enough about their children to spend time with them but not you folks.
Mayor Pete has said goodbye to ever be elected or appointed to public office again.
And another unforced error by team Biden.
It’s not going to get better until Biden is out of office or the GOP gets control of the house back.
then — let the investigations begin!
It is amazing how immature Buttageig is. He thought it was a good career move to sign on to a job paying $200k+/year, and a few months later claim “maternity benefits” worth more than $15,000.
Any one who did this in the private sector would have a hard time finding a job again. The fact that you are being paid this much means that you are critical for the profitable operation of the firm. It would literally be a “WTF?” moment for whomever had hired him or her. “Why is he or she committing career suicide? This reflects badly on everyone involved in the hiring decision.”
All “situation normal” in the Biden administration.
And it will get worse.
We have now achieved comic opera level re: buttagieg’s derelection of office.
Aren’t Americans deserving of parental leave?
Whatever. But Buttagieg was not a floor walker at department store. The very least the declining Biden admin could do was announce a temporary replacement.
No one did. There is some doubt that Biden even knew that Buttagieg was not actually, you know, doing his job.
This kind of seems important for a chief executive.
Unforced error after unforced error. And it will not et better until Slow Joe Biden is out of office or he is castrated by conservatives regaining control of the house.
I’m surprised to hear parenting doesn’t exist from so many self-styled conservatives. Of all the hills Woolly could choose to die on, ‘paternity leave is stupid’ is one of the weirdest I can recall.
Once again Emery deliberately misquotes me.
Biden said of Chris Dodd yesterday:
But do you know my measure? Madam Ambassador, Ambassador Kennedy, do you know what my measure is? People who tell me they care about people and then disrespect the waitress or a waiter.
Dodd, of course, famously enjoyed sexually assaulting waitresses.
Something is wrong with Biden’s brain. Makes you wonder who really is running the country. My guess is that it is radical staffers, enabled by Jill Biden, whose politics are far to the left of Joe’s.
…waittaminute… all this gotcha’ing about conservatives being bad parents is based on blind unquestioning support for paternity leaves? Really?
All it took for conservatives to abandon family values and downplay the importance of parenting was for Buttigieg to take paternity leave.
This seems like a good time to bring the topic of the Biden grand daughter that he will never mention.
American soldier with lactation difficulties relentlessly mocked by large-breasted Fox News dancer. https://twitter.com/DPRK_News/status/1449795217545105412?s=20
Just a stream of stupid from Emery.
“If you value families, then paternity leave is super important to you”.
No.
We get that you think the idea of paternity leave is more important than the office of US Secretary of Transportation.
We get that you think women don’t play an important part in a family structure, and you can construct families without them and experience no loss. You probably think the same of men.
We get that you feel an aching need to be wrong about everything.
And success is yours.
The maternity/paternity leave is a red herring, no one is forced to take it.
No one would think less of a guy who refused to take paternity leave . . . except maybe Emery.
I am free to exercise my judgment on people who do or do not take maternity/paternity leave, and in the case of cabinet level appointees . . . are you kidding? Without appointing a temporary replacement?
“President Roosevelt! The Japs have attacked Pearl Harbor! What will we do?”
“Well, Since Secretary of War Hull is out on paternity leave, I guess we can’t do anything. Someone has to bond with that baby by bottle feeding him!. I just hope his paternity leave ends before the Japs take Melbourne . . .”
Junior lawyer working at a law firm: “I’m not taking paternity leave! The needs of the firm and my cleints are more important than me changing my chlld’s diapers!”
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Peter Buttagieg: “Well, it looks like a few months of paid leave for me. F*ck the American people and their supply chain crisis. This sweet gig pays $212k/year. I’m not quitting, and I’m not going to do my job, either.”
Truck drivers don’t take paternity leave that they are entitled to. But the Secretary of transportation? He is out of here! Gotta bottle feed little Chad and Tiffany! Straighten your critical transport issues out yourselves, truck drivers, ‘Cuz Buttagieg is outta here!
The one nice thing I can say about Buttigieg is that he’s actually quite competent in contrast to Federico Pena, who became Secretary of Transportation after his pet project, Denver International Airport, went 4x over budget and years late, and then when that didn’t pan out well (duh), he was made Secretary of Energy–after having presided over the collapse of the Colorado oil industry.
Damning with faint praise, yes, but we are talking politics, not any meritocracy.
Regarding his maternity leave, there is usually a procedure for leaves by which a person provides for someone to make important decisions and do important tasks. As Joe notes, since this wasn’t done, it speaks volumes about the importance of his job.
And really, given the instincts of the Biden administration, shouldn’t we be thankful he’s not at work? He’d be likely to nationalize those truck emissions regulations and prevent the other 50 % of semis from going to ports and actually shipping cargo.
Ho-Lee F*** Emery’s comments/responses on this thread are quite possibly the silliest or most vacuous (I looked it up!) I’ve ever read on any blog ever ….. is there an award for this sort of thing??