Transportation Secretary, Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg, started out his career in the Biden administration doing what he’s still doing – nothing. He took paternity leave [1] for months when he was only seven months into his job after his twins were born. His position (virtual or in-person) is so insignificant in the administration that no one even missed him for quite a while.
When it was finally pointed out that he was gone, we were all called homophobic and we were chastised for not being understanding that a new father needs to spend time with his babies. And after all, Pete can Zoom-in his job just like everyone else. And he does his zooming well. He’s still doing it.
Was Pete accountable when the airline industry was having staff shortages, flight delays and other problems this summer?
Nope.
Was Pete accountable when the ports were in chaos and the supply chain was broken?
Nope.
Was Pete accountable when the negotiations were breaking down during a possible railroad strike?
Nope.
Is Pete accountable NOW with the Southwest Airlines fiasco?
Nope.
In fact, Petey wasn’t even in the country [2] towards the end of the railroad negotiations when all parties (except Petey) were trying to avert a national rail-worker strike. He was on vacation in Portugal. I guess anything actually related to transportation is not really his job. Getting something done in the transportation sector or adverting crisis is not really his job.
What IS his job is just talking about stuff – appearing on TV, doing interviews and showing up for photo ops. And making sure his department is diverse.
And he receives a nice salary for being the virtual Transportation Secretary and spending his time doing interviews and talking about stuff. More than $200,000 in fact. To talk. That’s it. That’s all I have seen him do or accomplish. Talk about stuff.
He’s been seen in places like Michigan, standing next to Gov. Whitmer yapping about green energy projects. Yes, we’ve all seen him on TV yapping about all kinds of things – most of those times via Zoom. Who the heck knows where he is or what he’s really doing on a daily basis.
With the big storms that impacted much of the country over the holidays, Petey made sure to get on the TV and give people tips about holiday travel. He also said he was monitoring the situation according to Politico [3]. Monitoring and talking about things. Doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside that he said he was going to be watching the airlines “closely”?
And, of course, he’s also been on TV lately complaining about the Southwest Airlines problem. He said, “From what I can tell, Southwest is unable to locate even where their own crews are, let alone their own passengers, let alone baggage.”
From what Pete can tell? Isn’t that his job – to be able to tell? Isn’t it his job to be on top of the transportation sector and to know what’s going on? To be proactive? Apparently not. He doesn’t appear to
be proactive in ANYTHING except to give tips to us poor peasants who can’t afford our own private jets to take us to and from.
And now we find out even more career incompetence he is involved in. Just the News [4] reported recently that his Department of Transportation is too busy dealing with equity and climate justice to do much of anything else. Yes, the priorities of the Biden administration are, first and foremost, DIVERSITY, EQUITY and INCLUSION (DEI) with climate change being a close second.
Just the News reports that (not surprisingly), according to a new report by the department’s internal watchdog, the Transportation Dept. and the FAA don’t track “imports of plane parts” creating serious vulnerabilities that could increase the risk of supply chain disruptions.
Hm… young Petey sure sounds a lot like Southwest Airlines, not knowing where anything is or what is going on.
The report pointed out “We identified several vulnerabilities that increase the risk of aviation supply chain disruptions, including the lack of visibility into supply chains, dependence on sole-source or limited suppliers, and lack of access to rare earth metals and elements…The fact the government does not track aircraft imports means there is a lack of visibility into supply chains, which can make it more difficult for manufacturers to identify and resolve issues if problems do arise.”
The supply chain? Who cares about that?! Certainly not Buttigieg. He’s too busy flying around on taxpayer-funded private jets [5] even though he’s supposed to be a climate change warrior.