United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, announced on Wednesday temporary flight restrictions "near or around rescue and recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene."
Buttigieg stated, "Our goal is to make sure that funding is no obstacle to very quickly get people the relief that they need and deserve."
'This is biblical-level devastation. This is apocalyptic, the things that we see out there.'
"There's also some safety issues that come up," he continued. "For example, temporary flight restrictions to make sure that the airspace is clear for any flights or drone activity that might be involved in helping to allow those emergency responders to do their job."
The Transportation Department posted a video of Buttigieg's comments, adding, "Drone pilots: Do not fly your drone near or around rescue and recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene. Interfering with emergency response operations impacts search and rescue operations on the ground."
During a Wednesday press briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed that the federal government lacks the funds to fully respond to such disasters, Blaze News previously reported.
"We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds," Mayorkas remarked.
America First Legal reported that the Biden-Harris administration's Federal Emergency Management Agency blew a significant portion of its funding on illegal immigrants.
"The Biden-Harris FEMA spent over $1 BILLION on funding illegal aliens," AFL stated.
Many have expressed frustration and dissatisfaction with the federal government's disaster relief response for American citizens residing in areas devastated by Hurricane Helene.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) torched the administration for its lackluster efforts to help Americans, particularly those living in rural areas.
Kemp told WRDW, "When the first emergency declarations came down, there was only 11 counties in that. A lot of people were outraged, including me, because there was such devastation in up to 90 counties."
"So we called the White House. We spoke to the president's chief of staff, the FEMA administrator and said, 'Look, you're sending the signal that you're not paying attention to some of these rural communities,'" he continued.
At least 200 people have been confirmed dead.
"It was a massive storm, and we're dealing with things statewide, even the metro-Atlanta area had record flooding. We had mudslides. We had to evacuate people below lakes and ponds up in the northeast part of the state, so we've been dealing with it," Kemp told the news outlet.
Tim Kennedy, co-founder of Save Our Allies, recently told Fox Business that FEMA is getting in the way of his team's rescue efforts.
"Where is the federal response and the plan?" Kennedy questioned.
When asked whether FEMA was on the ground, he responded, "I mean, they're present. They're in the way. They're directly interrupting our ability to conduct missions and operations."
Kennedy explained that he had attempted to place a couple of people in a hotel earlier this week, but he was unable to do so because federal employees had booked all of the rooms.
"This is biblical-level devastation. This is apocalyptic, the things that we see out there," he added.
On Thursday, Blaze News' Julio Rosas joined Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) in Swannanoa, North Carolina. Rosas noted that a group of veterans and locals had banded together to provide relief to those in need, making deliveries with civilian helicopters, UTVs, and ATVs.
"When I asked about the feds response, one guy said: What response?" Rosas posted on X.
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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was recently asked about one of his boss' unrealistic green schemes, namely the installation of electric vehicle charging stations across the country. His answer prompted CBS' Margaret Brennan to laugh in his face.
Apparently keen to keep the laughs coming, Buttigieg subsequently blamed airline turbulence on climate change.
Ahead of the 2020 election, then-candidate Joe Biden promised the American people in four debates and during his CNN town hall interview that he would build half a million new charging stations across the nation if elected.
After taking the White House, Biden reiterated his promise, stating in November 2021, "We're going to build out the first-ever national network of charging stations all across the country — over 500,000 of them. ... So you'll be able to go across the whole darn country, from East Coast to West Coast, just like you'd stop at a gas station now. These charging stations will be available."
That month, the then-Democrat-controlled Congress passed a corresponding $1 trillion infrastructure package. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and 18 other Republican lawmakers, evidently unswayed by former President Donald Trump's critiques, subsequently helped Democrats pass the measure in the U.S. Senate.
Of the 1,000 billion taxpayer dollars sunk into the bill, $73 billion was designated for updating the nation's electricity grid so it could carry more renewable energy and $7.5 billion to build Biden's promised EV charging stations by 2030.
According to the EV policy analyst group Atlas Public Policy, the funding designated for the rollout should be enough for at least 20,000 charging spots and 5,000 stations.
Now years into the scheme, it appears increasingly unlikely that Biden's costly promise will materialize.
In March, the Federal Highway Administration confirmed to the Washington Post that only seven of Biden's planned 500,000 EV charging stations were operational, amounting to a total of 38 spots for drivers in Hawaii, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to charge their vehicles.
Politico noted last year that that a National Renewable Energy Laboratory study estimated the country will need 1.2 million public chargers by 2030 to meet the demand artificially created by the Biden administration's climate agenda and corresponding regulations. As of June 2023, there were roughly 180,000 chargers nationwide.
House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and other Republican lawmakers penned a February letter to Buttigieg and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, expressing concerns that "American taxpayer dollars are being woefully mismanaged."
Over the weekend, Margaret Brennan pressed the issue further in conversation with the Biden DOT secretary on CBS' "Face the Nation."
"Let me ask you about a portion of this that I think does fall under your portfolio, and that's the charging stations you mentioned. The Federal Highway Administration says only seven or eight charging stations have been produced with a $7.5 billion investment that taxpayers made back in 2021," said Brennan. "Why isn't that happening more quickly?"
"So the president's goal is to have half a million chargers up by the end of this decade. Now, in order to do a charger, it's more than just plunking a small device into the ground. There's utility work, and this is also really a new category of federal investment."
"But we've been working with each of the 50 states," continued Buttigieg. "Every one of them is getting formula dollars to do this work."
Brennan leaned in and asked, "Seven or eight, though?"
"Again, by 2030: 500,000 chargers," responded Buttigieg.
Brennan laughed at Buttigieg's suggestion, evidently unable to conceal her disbelief in the possibility that another 499,992 chargers could be installed and operational inside the next six years.
"And the very first handful of chargers are now already being physically built. But again, that's the absolute very, very beginning stages of the construction to come," added Buttigieg.
Despite the Biden administration admittedly being at the "very, very beginning stages," it is nevertheless trying to get gas-consuming cars off the streets and replacing them with EVs that will all rely on the handful of existing charging stations.
In March, the administration announced a rule that would limit the amount of exhaust permitted from cars such that by 2032, over half of the new cars need to be so-called zero-emissions vehicles, reported the New York Times.
While short on satisfactory answers, Buttigieg still had plenty of alarmism to go around.
The DOT secretary told Brennan, "The reality is the effects of climate change are already upon us in terms of our transportation. We've seen that in the form of everything from heat waves that shouldn't statistically even be possible threatening to melt the cables of transit systems in the Pacific Northwest, to hurricane seasons becoming more and more extreme, and indications that turbulence is up by about 15%."
A study published last year in Geophysical Research Letters suggested that clear-air turbulence "is predicted to become more frequent because of climate change," claiming that the strongest category of clear-air turbulence was 55% more frequent in 2020 than in 1979.
Brennan pressed Buttigieg on whether the kind of extreme turbulence experienced last week by Singapore Airlines flight SQ321, which was traveling from London to Singapore, would soon become more common in the United States.
"To be clear, something that extreme is very rare. But turbulence can happen and sometimes it can happen unexpectedly," said Buttigieg. "This is all about making sure that we stay ahead of the curve, keeping aviation as safe as it is."
The "Face the Nation" interview was slapped with a community note on X, noting that National Transportation Safety Board data "shows there is no rising trend in aircraft turbulence incidents."
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Boeing has dominated the news cycle as its airplanes continue to mysteriously fall apart and malfunction mid-air.
While Boeing seems to be the obvious culprit, Glenn Beck isn’t so sure that it’s purely the company's fault anymore.
Glenn had a conversation with a good friend who was a pilot at American Airlines for 30-40 years — and that good friend was fed up with the news on Boeing.
The former pilot pointed out that all planes from Boeing not only receive a final check, but they receive a final check from the government.
“What I’m thinking is there’s a problem with maintenance, which would be a problem with the unions, because nobody has personal pride of ownership anymore,” Glenn recalls his friend saying.
“He’s not saying they’re innocent, but he is saying that they’re getting way more than their share of the blame for this,” Glenn explains.
“It’s not surprising that an institution would be taken down by the media,” Stu Burguiere adds.
While the blame may still be Boeing’s to take, Glenn wonders who else might deserve a share.
“Is it Boeing? Is it the FAA and Pete Buttigieg, secretary of transportation, is it the airline, is it the mechanics?” Glenn asks, before opening up his question to another former airline pilot named Michael from Kansas.
“I’m a retired captain with United,” he tells Glenn. “I don’t think it’s Boeing.”
However, there is a chance it could be because Boeing's focus is in the wrong place.
“Whether it’s the DEI culture, I couldn’t honestly say. But there’s certainly a culture that leads you away from, you know, perfection,” he adds.
To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
In the wake of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge’s collapse, skepticism continues to mount. A number of conspiracy theories regarding the events of the mysterious collision have since emerged.
Many have pointed to the possibility of a cyberattack, granted the cargo ship lost power. Others have honed in on the company that manages the ship — a DEI-captive firm called Synergy Marine Group. Then, there are those who call attention to the fact that the Baltimore bridge was not the Dali’s first unfortunate collision.
However, Glenn Beck, Pat Gray, and Stu Burguiere have another theory — one you probably haven’t heard of before.
And it centers around Pete Buttigieg, the United States’ secretary of Transportation.
There seems to be an unprecedented number of accidents related to transportation taking place under his watch, and yet nobody has heard from him.
“We never hear him talk about anything transportation” related, says Glenn. “He never shows up at the scene of the crime.”
“There are a lot of reasons to believe that Buttigieg isn't responsible for each” transportation mishap, but “how else do we explain this?” asks Stu, adding that “this guy has overseen disaster movie sequel after disaster movie sequel since he got this job.”
“Have we seen close-up pictures of the United Airlines flight when it was taking off losing the tire? ... Was [Buttigieg] up in the wheel hub?” laughs Glenn.
“Was he driving a tankard truck last June 11 and left it on I95 in Philadelphia?” asks Pat jokingly.
While the theory isn’t meant to be taken seriously, it is uncanny that America has seen an immense rise in the number of transportation “accidents” since Buttigieg took office.
To hear more, watch the clip below.
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While Boeing planes continue to malfunction and fall apart mid-air, media outlets like Wired are insisting that noticing this alarming trend is just playing into a “far-right” conspiracy theory.
However, these “far-right” theories are grounded in a very real issue: DEI. It appears that the airplane manufacturer is placing diversity, equity, and inclusion above skills and safety.
Some right-wing influencers have gone as far as claiming it’s being done on purpose, but Glenn Beck doesn’t fall into that category.
“I don’t think it’s being done intentionally by Boeing,” Glenn says, acknowledging “this is a direct result of DEI.”
Stu Burguiere is in agreement.
“Go back to old school advertising,” Stu says. “You’d hear companies say stuff like, ‘We are obsessed with quality,’ ‘All we think about every day is how to make your experience better.’”
“Now their commercials are, ‘We never think about the product! All we think about is how many vaginas we have employed,’” he continues, adding, “It’s pretty freaking natural to think maybe quality isn’t their main focus.”
Many of the failing planes have malfunctioned under United Airlines' watch, and it just so happens their CEO has recently come under fire for a video of him performing as a drag queen.
“Isn’t it interesting that when you have the CEO of United come out in a dress and is like, ‘We’re doing transgender strip shows all the time, and pilots, and stewardesses, the mechanics, they love it,’” Glenn says, adding, “He seems to be so focused on drag shows and DEI.”
To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
The United States Supreme Court ruled Friday that Colorado cannot force Christian graphic designer Lorie Smith to create art that violates her religious beliefs, particularly her belief that marriage necessarily entails the union between a man and a woman.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, noted, "The First Amendment’s protections belong to all, not just to speakers whose motives the government finds worthy."
Democratic Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is evidently of a different mind, indicating in an interview over the weekend that the court's prioritization of Americans' constitutional rights over ideological conformity is problematic.
Buttigieg spoke to CBS' Margaret Brennan on "Face the Nation" about a number issues Sunday, including the airline disruptions neither he nor his department appears capable of resolving.
Brennan raised the matter of the Supreme Court's June 30 decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, then cited Buttigieg's reactive tweet, which read, "Discrimination is wrong. Using religion as an excuse to discriminate is wrong - and unconstitutional. The Court's minority is right: the Constitution is no license for a business to discriminate. Today's ruling will move America backward."
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"Justice Gorsuch said this was a First Amendment issue where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands," said Brennan. "What do you make of the argument that Colorado was labeling free speech as discrimination in order to censor it?"
Buttigieg suggested that cases such as graphic designer Lorie Smith's "are designed to get people spun up and designed to chip away at rights."
In Smith's case, Buttigieg appears to have been referencing the "right" of LGBT activists to call upon the state to force an artist to generate artwork or messaging she finds morally compromising.
"You look at Friday's decision diminishing the equality of same-sex couples. You look at a number of the decisions that have been made; they pose a question that is even deeper than these big cases. And the question is this: Did we just live to see the high water mark of freedoms and rights in this country before they were gradually taken away?" said Buttigieg.
The openly gay Biden secretary, who adopted two children with his "husband," further suggested that the court's ruling jeopardized the generational accretion of rights that has "added up and affected so many people, including me, of course, as I'm getting ready to go back to my husband and our twins for the rest of this morning, thinking about the fact that the existence of our family is is only a reality because of a one-vote margin on the Supreme Court a few years ago."
Buttigieg stressed that the Supreme Court is "very much out of step with how most Americans view these issues."
The Supreme Court has long served America as a countermajoritarian institution, upholding the Constitution even when "out of step" with public opinion.
For instance, the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which saw U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools struck down as unconstitutional, was a deeply unpopular decision at the time. This was especially true of southern Democrats, such as Sen. Harry Byrd Sr. of Virginia, who reckoned the court was out of step with popular opinion and worked ardently to prevent desegregation.
One of the primary reasons Supreme Court justices and other federal judges appointed under Article III of the Constitution hold their posts for life is to spare them from having to pander to the mob — or as Alexander Hamilton put it in Federalist No. 78, to preclude them from developing "too great a disposition to consult popularity."
Brennan also asked Buttigieg about the provocative analogies in the amicus brief co-signed by 20 senators and 48 House members that Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Mike Lee (Utah) co-led, which said, "Compelling an individual to use her artistic and intellectual capabilities to create a message she opposes is the most odious form of compelled expression. Such laws coerce writers and artists into 'betraying their convictions.' ... They are the tool of totalitarian regimes, not the United States."
The brief compared the imposition of Colorado's coercive law on Smith to the requirement that an atheist musician perform at an evangelical church service or a Muslim tattoo artist be "forced to write 'My religion is the only true religion' on the body of a Christian."
Buttigieg responded, "That's really not a comparison that is relevant to this case. But more importantly, I think it's really telling that you have to think of these far-fetched hypotheticals in order to justify decisions that are actually going to have much worse impacts in the real world. And I think this, again, goes back to the broader agenda of the culture wars that are being fired up."
TheBlaze previously reported that President Joe Biden, like his DOT secretary, is upset over the court's ruling in this case.
"While the Court’s decision only addresses expressive original designs, I'm deeply concerned that the decision could invite more discrimination against LGBTQI+ Americans. More broadly, today’s decision weakens long-standing laws that protect all Americans against discrimination in public accommodations – including people of color, people with disabilities, people of faith, and women," Biden said in a statement.
It is not just cars and leaf blowers, stoves, or even air conditioning. What is at stake is much deeper: human dignity.
thefederalist.com
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