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Buttigieg stressed that the NTSB "needs to be able to do its work independently."
[Note: The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent U.S.
government investigative agency "responsible for civil transportation accident
investigation."]
Yet the criticism kept coming, even after Buttigieg visited East Palestine once the
NTSB had completed its investigation. (Critics on the left say the MAGA
Republicans like Boebert, Greene and Rep. Jim Jordan are using the accident to
sow more division. The MAGA wing of the GOP says the Biden administration
isn’t fulfilling its obligations.)
The criticism then moved beyond complaints issued on social media and in
mainstream media to a formal request for information made by letter to
Buttigieg, signed by Rep. James Comer, Chairman of the Committee on
Oversight and Accountability, with MAGA stars Jordan, Boebert and Greene
among the 21 Republican signatories.
The letter contains a misunderstanding of the structural makeup of the
Department of Transportation, asserting that the NTSB is part of the DOT. It
reads (note the possessive): “DOT’s National Transportation Safety Board
(NTSB) issued a preliminary report on February 23, 2023, which stopped short of
declaring a concrete cause of the derailment.”
In a public response referencing the letter, Buttigieg trolls its senders, writing that
he is “alarmed to learn that the Chair of the House Oversight Committee thinks
that the NTSB is part of our Department.”
[Note: The chief subtext to this story concerns Trump administration train safety
deregulations and corresponding record railroad industry profits. MAGA leaves
this out of its narrative. But Dems, who haven’t reversed the dangerous
deregulations, are also vulnerable to criticism for inaction.]
About that subtext, Buttigieg had this to say in East Palestine: “The same people
who come here and want to play political games are the same people who sided
with industry, again and again and again, and watered down rail regulations
again, and again, and again.”
Seeking to reach the American people where they live to deliver his message
directly, Buttigieg appeared on the program of sports media personality Stephen
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A. Smith (see below). Buttigieg said he was there to “cut through the noise, cut
through the misinformation and get to the facts.”
Buttigieg told Smith: “Our focus is on making sure that residents in this
community get taken care of and making sure that trains get safer in this
country.”
Professor Aviva Vincent at Syracuse University, addressing the current and
future impact of the derailment, reported on February 20: "The toxins have
already reached the Ohio River which flows through six states and serves as a
source of drinking water. Over 3,500 fish have died, livestock that graze the lands
have died or been moved out of state. The human toll will include the
environmental, economic, social, and personal impact. Evacuated residents were
given ‘permission' to return home days after the event though it is still not safe to
do so."
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McPherson was shot in the chest and pronounced dead at the scene just after
1:50 a.m., police said.
About an hour earlier, police were called to a bar on the 5300 block of Woodland
Avenue, where a man told them that a woman in a car opened fire at another
pedestrian. The man said he shot back at her before she fled.
Soon after, a woman with gunshot wounds to the chest and arm arrived at PennPresbyterian Medical Center in a silver Infiniti, police said. She died there at 1:11
a.m., authorities wrote.
Detectives believe the woman had gotten into an argument with the pedestrian
before allegedly shooting at him. Her name had not been released, and no arrests
have been made as of Thursday afternoon, officials noted.
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