• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    72
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    Transportation officials also said the total cost of Buttigieg’s flights on FAA planes up to that time was about $42,000. Chao took 15 FAA flights early in the Trump administration, and the cost of just one of them, which was international, was nearly $69,000, the Post reports.

    It’s good both are being investigated, but definitely seems like Pete’s isn’t that big of a deal compared to what Republicans do

    • SkepticalButOpenMinded@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      88
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m not convinced it is a good thing that both are being investigated if the investigation into Buttigieg is just political smearing. HRC’s emails show the cost of abusive investigations. Investigations aren’t cost free, either monetarily or in terms of public trust in institutions. It implies he did something worth investigating, and devalues the seriousness of real investigations, like those against Trump.

      When the review was announced, Buttigieg had flown on FAA planes 18 times out of 138 flights for official trips since becoming secretary early in 2021, according to The Washington Post. He takes commercial flights most of the time, and when he uses FAA aircraft, it’s usually because it’s cheaper than commercial flights, a Department of Transportation spokeswoman said.

      This does not seem to be something worth investigating.

      • squiblet@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        27
        ·
        1 year ago

        devalues the seriousness of real investigations

        The only thing people like Green or Jordan doing Congress is distract, distract, distract.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        21
        ·
        1 year ago

        Huh?

        If they investigate him, and everything is cool, then it’s cool… Which is what the article sounds like.

        If he’s abusing it, just to a much smaller degree, then that’s still an issue.

        Like, that’s the whole point of not just holding people from your “own team” accountable. If someone might be doing something wrong, you investigate them no matter who they are.

        Do you think an investigation means a huge thing where he testifies in front of Congress? That’s not an investigation.

        • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          31
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          The problem with investigating false allegations, aside from the waste of tax payer money, is that the damage is done in the beginning of the investigation. The fascist talking points are now about excessive spending from the Democrats. They won’t even bother retracting statements when they are found to be false.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            18
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            What do you think an investigation is?

            It’s just looking at his flights, and seeing if he was flying free when he should have been paying.

            From the article, that’s already been done.

            How much do you think that possibly costs?

            • BURN@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              19
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              The republicans don’t care what the outcome of the investigation is. They just want to use it as a political gotcha.

              Government investigations over frivolous things are a waste of taxpayer money and time.

              • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                12
                ·
                1 year ago

                Government investigations over frivolous things are a waste of taxpayer money and time.

                It’s getting concerning no one answers this and acts like it’s a giant thing…

                What do you think an investigation is?

                Like, an audit would take a low GS employee an afternoon…

                What do you think an investigation entails that it’s prohibitively expensive?

                • Sanctus@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  10
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  Whats wrong is this is retaliation by Republicans. Did you read the article? They’re framing it as taxpayers paying for Peter to receive gay sex awards. Does that sound like a pressing issue? Or a real thing to you? Does that sound worthy of investigation? The Avengers should have never stopped Thanos.

                • BURN@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  5
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  It’s not just this case. This is a much wider pattern from the republicans to waste taxpayer money investigating things that they have no need to be involved in.

                  The same idea applies to the hunter Biden probe. It’s politically motivated investigations that don’t need to be done, but are done because the republicans can use taxpayer money to hash out their problems.

                  Nobody is saying this specific audit cost millions of dollars, but it certainly cost a whole lot more than just the salary of a single person for a few hours.

        • SkepticalButOpenMinded@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I am not against holding “my own team” accountable if there is some valid reason to think there is something worth investigating. If there isn’t, it is a witch hunt, and witch hunts are harmful. They can be used to harass, waste time, and slander by vague insinuation. More to the point, the public has finite attention. News of pointless investigations can be used strategically to drown out real ones, which is a threat to democracy. That is, I believe, what Republicans are presently doing.

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Yeah, but when you have obvious and public cases of MASSIVE corruption in “your own team” and you fail to adress that… instead gojng after any “petty” corruption in the other team…

          Yeah. That’s a problem.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            12
            ·
            1 year ago

            If someone steals 100 million from a charity, it doesn’t mean we dont care if someone else stole 10k…

            And it certainly doesn’t mean we don’t even look if someone stole 10k

            • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              8
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              You missed the point.

              Or your ignoring it because you know that your team doesn’t care aboutnl corruption, just scoring political points.

              Either way you slice it, republicans are patently and blatantly corrupt and only going after democrats because they’re democrats.

              • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                5
                ·
                1 year ago

                Either way you slice it, republicans are patently and blatantly corrupt and only going after democrats because they’re democrats.

                So?

                Literally who cares what they’re doing. Dems should be investigating everyone regardless of party.

                Otherwise no Dem will ever be held accountable, because Republicans are completely incompetent. It won’t take long of that for grifters to take over both parties.

                Holding everyone accountable shouldn’t be a controversy statement.

                • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Otherwise no Dem will ever be held accountable

                  held accountable for…what, exactly? having a big cock? or having a job? or, Biden doing business after leaving the whitehouse? Or Pete Travelling? Literally none of these house investigations- which are being done by REPUBLICANS- are being conducted in good faith. it’s partisan politics, and it’s a massive waste of time. Because Democrats do hold their own accountable where republicans absolutely do not.

                  There is zero evidence of corruption here- or else it would be moved to criminal courts- See, for example, Senator Menendez.

        • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          The problem is, Republicans don’t tell the truth. When you actually press the investigative committee into Hunter Biden about the evidence they have, they’ll quietly murmur there isn’t any. But otherwise, they’ll very loudly suggest they have evidence and outright lie.

    • squiblet@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      As usual, republicans try to make democrats doing something normal seem like a huge scandalous deal while they and their sleazy-ass media hyenas entirely ignore what “their side” did or does.

  • donuts@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    59
    ·
    1 year ago

    The House Republicans truly have zero intention of doing their job or serving the needs of the country.

    • s_i_m_s@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      Still can’t figure out why their voters either don’t see it or don’t care.

      Like at least prior to trump you could kinda see it but now you just have to be in outright denial of reality.

  • GiddyGap
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    41
    ·
    1 year ago

    I wonder if MTG has actually ever done anything for her district. She’s spending all her time with all these petty, childish antics. What a loser.

  • BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    29
    ·
    1 year ago

    How is that not a bill of attainder, accompanied by in-depth media confessions that it is in fact a bill of attainder?

    FYI, a bill of attainder is legislation that imposes punishment on a specific person or group of people without a judicial trial

  • billwashere@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    26
    ·
    1 year ago

    I cannot wait until she falls into obscurity. Old and wrinkled sitting at a lonely table at a flea market gun show to sign photographs and nobody is paying her any attention.

  • Cyyris@infosec.pub
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    1 year ago

    How about maybe pass a fucking budget instead of wasting time and money on this bullshit.

    • CapgrasDelusion@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      What do you mean? They are. If we stopped paying Pete we’d have the current US debt payed off in about 149,052,132 years. Maybe add a few hundred thousand years for interest but I don’t believe that’s significant.

    • TechyDad@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      But all the Republicans have is performative garbage.

      And this is definitely performative. The salary change would need to go through the Senate and there’s no way this passes. The House Republicans know this. They just want to “own the libz” by saying they’ll reduce some salaries to $1.

      It’s easier than actually doing work.

  • leadore@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    1 year ago

    I think she’s upset because “Secretary of Transportation” has the word “Trans” in it and she got confused.

  • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    33
    arrow-down
    21
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    I mean, fuck Buttigieg, but this is a pretty dangerous precedent.

    Edit: c’mon people. He didn’t do anything after the East Palestine disaster, he makes excuses for why we can’t have high speed rail or even just a better Amtrak, and he hasn’t done anything to reduce car centric design. He’s the god damn secretary of transportation.

    • donuts@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      he hasn’t done anything to reduce car centric design

      In all fairness, this doesn’t really fall under the purview of the Secretary of Transportation.

      I think most urban design and planning happens at the local level, and the federal DoT is mostly responsible for allocating funds to state and local city governments.

      • admiralteal@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        And I think it’s not hard to argue that he did quite a bit towards reducing car-centric design as a mayor. Mayors have WAY more control over that stuff, in general. The DOTs are the DOTs. They’re going to be conservative and they’re going to waste money. They also don’t really follow federal marching orders.

        Biden/Buttigieg have pushed for more Amtrak investment than has happened in a long time, though, along with proposals for further expansion for local rail and BRT service. Just a typical case study in a progressive failing the leftist purity test.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        That’s fair. I’m willing to concede that he doesn’t have a major part to play in reducing car-centric design, though I think he could create general guidance for cities to follow

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      He’s a McKinsey man…

      The vast amount of issues with capitalism in our country can be traced back to young idiots in their 20s working for McKinsey telling CEOs the best thing they can do in any situation is layoffs is raising CEO pay.

      They’ve also worked for pretty much every evil organization, including the Saudi government

      John Oliver just did an episode on it a few weeks ago.

    • FoundTheVegan@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      It sucks that legitimate critism of democrats makes you sound like unhinged MAGA lunatic. Not that it’s ever really gonna be a choice between fascism or their bebal incompetent feet dragging corruption, just a sad reality of our crappy two party system.

      • havocpants
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        1 year ago

        just a sad reality of our crappy two party system.

        As an outsider, it looks like the US only has a one party system now. One party and a group of spiteful, contrarian fascists trying to overthrow its democracy.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I don’t understand what you mean. He’s in THE position to make changes to how this country handles transportation, and he hasn’t done much of anything. He even made excuses for why trains can’t have safer brakes or more stringent chemical safety requirements. I don’t place the brunt of these issues on him, but he’s doing fuck-all about them.

    • penquin
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      Take my upvote. The dude is sucks.

  • badaboomxx@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    1 year ago

    They should do that with the gop ans republicans, after all they get their money thanks to bribes and companies paying them to legislate in their favor