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Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg Compared to a ‘Toddler Playing with Toy Train Set’ after Maine Derailment

Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg Compared to a ‘Toddler Playing with Toy Train Set’ after Maine Derailment

Representative Lauren Boebert remarks come after train incident led to forest fire in Central Maine.

It’s been a while since we checked in on the hapless Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

Since his ineffective and tone-deaf response to the East Palestine train derailment, he has come under official scrutiny for his jet-setting lifestyle.

The Department of Transportation’s (DOT) internal watchdog is opening an audit into Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg over his extensive use of private jets, the agency confirmed to Fox News Digital on Monday.

The DOT Inspector General investigation comes roughly two months following a Fox News Digital report that showed Buttigieg, who has repeatedly argued in favor of aggressive action to combat climate change, has taken at least 18 flights using taxpayer-funded private jets since taking office in early 2021. Flight records reviewed by Fox News Digital aligned with Buttigieg’s internal calendar obtained at the time by government watchdog group Americans for Public Trust (APT).

“After Americans for Public Trust helped determine Secretary Buttigieg’s excessive use of taxpayer-funded government jets, we are pleased to see that his air travel is now under investigation,” APT executive director Caitlin Sutherland told Fox News Digital on Monday.

“Everyday Americans have faced unprecedented flight cancelations and disruptions, but Buttigieg has continued to fly private, even on a Coast Guard plane and even when commercial options were readily available.”

And his team certainly has not resolved the issues surrounding the train derailments around the country.
A train derailed near a village in central Maine this weekend, resulting in a fire in the surrounding forest.

Officials say the derailed fright train cars were carrying lumber and wiring. Other carts were carrying hazardous materials but were unaffected by the derailment and the fire, a spokesperson for the Canadian Pacific Kansas City rail network said. Officials said the derailment likely was caused by a washout of ice and debris on the tracks.

The Rockwood Fire and Rescue Department said the train derailed north of Rockwood, a village in Somerset County that borders Moosehead Lake – the largest body of fresh water in the state.

Officials at the scene assessed the derailment and said the “hazardous materials are not at risk of leaking and are not at risk of catching fire,” Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry spokesperson Jim Britt said in a statement.

This incident led Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) to brand Buttigieg as “a toddler playing with his first train set.”

The firebrand Republican added: “Buttigieg is running this country’s rail system like a toddler playing with his first toy train set.”

Since being shared online, Bobert’s comment has been viewed more than 733,000 times.

As of Sunday morning, Buttigieg has not responded to Boebert or shared any posts about the derailment on Twitter or his other social media accounts.

Here is where I am going to have to disagree with the Congresswoman. My son got his first train set at 18 months. He took good care of all his “Thomas the Train” collection, to the point that we donated them to the church pre-school when he moved on to the next phase of his life.

We can only begin to hope that Buttigieg develops a smidgen of that kind of concern for the nation’s transportation system. Right now, the only achievement the Transportation Secretary has unlocked is that everyone knows who he is…and not for good reasons.

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Comments

E Howard Hunt | April 17, 2023 at 3:10 pm

The book that best describes Mayor Pete is the DSM-II.

A toddler, with much less brain power, would perform better as Sec of Transportation.

    It’s no accident he’s in the position he’s in today. He’s there to destroy.

      Actually, I suggest that he’s there so that the Dems didn’t lose a voting block when he couldn’t hack the primaries.

      That’s it, the one and only reason for his existence in DC was to enable the dribbling idiot who occasionally totters into the whitehouse to do his masters’ bidding.

There’s three derailments a day. It’s not a public problem but a railroad problem. They’re expensive. Traded off against that is the cost of maintaining the equipment, and they’ve already got the tradeoff of costs worked out.

The route to p0litical power is to discover a new “public problem” and take ownership of it. (Joseph Gusfield, Contested Meanings). And there’s a new player, the media needing hysteria about something every day to sell eyeballs to advertisers.

    The Gentle Grizzly in reply to rhhardin. | April 17, 2023 at 4:00 pm

    That today’s huge engines and freight cars can stay on a gauge meant for rolling stock 1/3 those of today is nothing short of a miracle.

That is nothing but an insult to 5 year olds

It’s like he’s not EVEN playing with the train set. He’s off somewhere while the train set runs around and around in another room, unsupervised, and chewing up the furniture.

What, me worry? Alfred E Neuman

He’s single-handedly put back gay culture all by himself

My pronoun is Attack Helicopter | April 18, 2023 at 9:15 am

Mayor Pete ButtPlug is a diversity hire. He couldn’t run the ‘Man Train’ at the local gay bar!!!

Nuff said.

Robert Powers | April 18, 2023 at 9:47 am

Snow and wet forest conditions prevented fire from becoming a major disaster. If it occurred in May/June when forest is drier, it would have been a different story.

It amazes me that anyone can believe what he says.

Asked this before, will ask it again. Can we please have NASA send our Secretary of Transportation off to Pluto (one way).

And, to think that this weirdo is promoted as a potential POTUS.
We have truly lost our minds.