Woke NTSB Says ‘Overheated Wheel Bearing’ Derailed Train, Doesn’t Even Call Secretary Mayor Pete Gay

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued a preliminary report yesterday on its investigation into the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. The report says the train’s crew knew one car on the train had a badly overheated wheel bearing, and had already begun slowing the train just before the derailment.

Weirdly, the NTSB didn’t place any of the blame for the February 3 crash or the subsequent toxic chemical spill on President Joe Biden, Transportation Secretary Mayor Pete Buttigieg, or on transgender kids in American schools forcing others to acknowledge their preferred pronouns. That’s sure to come up on Newsmax.

Buttigieg was in East Palestine himself yesterday, where he didn’t buy McDonald’s hamburgers for anyone, unlike Donald Trump, who was there the day before and personally fixed everything. While Buttigieg was there, he acknowledged the rightwing media complaints that he hadn’t personally visited the site sooner, saying he’d “do some thinking” on whether he should have gone sooner. Oh for your sake, Pete! You really do over-intellectualize things a bit, but that’s how you do:

“What I tried to do was balance two things — my desire to be involved and engaged in on the ground, which is how I am generally wired to act and my desire to follow the norm of transportation secretaries allowing NTSB to really lead the initial stages of the public facing work,” he told reporters. “I’ll do some thinking about whether I got that balance right. But I think the most important thing is, first of all, making sure that the residents here have what they need.”

For all his introspection, Buttigieg got a Fox News story headlining how he’d gone on MSNBC last night and cruelly pointed out Donald Trump’s rollback of safety regulations, what a monster. Fox News also ran a fun story rounding up rightwingers on Twiitter mocking the “leather dress shoes” Buttigieg had worn, because what real man goes to a muddy disaster site in anything but steel-toed work boots?


So there’s your payback for the liberal media making fun of Ron DeSantis’s weird white hurricane boots, haw haw. Maybe Pete left his high heels in the car, replied one wag, because you know he is an effete gay homosexual who never wore boots, certainly not during his combat tour in Afghanistan. That’s him, second on the left, in a campaign photo. Those look like boots!

Jesus, you see how easy it is to get sucked into this stupid performative macho shit? Anyway, if Buttigieg had worn gnarly steel-toed work boots, wingnut media would have accused him of fakery because does he really wear Thorogood American Heritage steel-toed work boots around his soft office job? He does not, and how dare he spend $250 on boots just for a photo op? Damn him to hell!

So yes, the NTSB report.

Among the top findings were that the train crew appears to have acted appropriately; the train was traveling 47 miles per hour, a bit below the maximum speed for that area of 50 miles per hour. It was already slowing a bit when automated trackside monitoring equipment detected that a wheel bearing on the twenty-third car of the train was dangerously hot, 253°F above the ambient temperature of 10°F. (When car 23 passed two earlier detectors, they picked up temperatures that were rising, but well below the temperature threshold that would trigger an alarm.)

The detection equipment “transmitted a critical audible alarm message instructing the crew to slow and stop the train to inspect a hot axle,” and the engineer began slowing the train down, but then “an automatic emergency brake application initiated,” which Axios explains may have resulted from train cars separating from each other.

Once the train stopped, the crew “observed fire and smoke and notified the Cleveland East dispatcher of a possible derailment,” and with permission from the dispatcher, set the hand brakes on the first two cars and uncoupled the locomotives to move them a mile away for safety. The report does not note whether the train crew said “Whew!”

Thirty-eight cars of the 149-car train derailed; among them were 11 tank cars carrying hazardous chemicals. Fire broke out and also damaged 12 cars on the train that hadn’t derailed.

Axios notes that first responders who arrived on the scene got the initial fire under control, but Ohio authorities were concerned about five derailed tank cars carrying vinyl chloride, a carcinogenic chemical used in making PVC plastic. Temperatures inside one of the cars kept rising, “suggesting the chemical was undergoing a polymerization reaction and could explode.”

That prompted local responders on February 6 to evacuate a larger area around the crash site, then vent the five cars and burn off the chemicals, which took several hours. The NTSB report is careful to point out that the agency wasn’t involved in that decision, or in testing air and water quality following the crash. Please take your questions to the EPA and to Ohio GOP Governor Mike DeWine, who authorized the chemical burnoff after advisers warned him of the high risk of an explosion. (OK, fine, the NTSB didn’t specify DeWine, just that it wasn’t the feds’ decision.)

The NTSB will focus its ongoing investigation on:

[T]he wheelset and bearing; tank car design and derailment damage; a review of the accident response, including the venting and burning of the vinyl chloride; railcar design and maintenance procedures and practices; NS [Norfolk Southern] use of wayside defect detectors; and NS railcar inspection practices.

We should also point out that nowhere in the report does the NTSB examine the crucial railroad safety thoughts of Donald Trump Jr., who on Wednesday night went on Newsmax to explain that nobody in the Biden administration knows what they’re doing because Pete Buttiieg is gay and that was his only job qualification.

The son of the former president, who has never held a real job outside his daddy’s business/crime organization (or gigs in rightwing media resulting from that nepo baby status), claimed Joe Biden “doesn’t give a crap” and “couldn’t care less” about the people of East Palestine. You know, unlike his father, master of empathy Donald “have a good time” Trump.

Then it was time for the full-on gay-hatin’.

Newsmax host Carl Higbie started Junior off with the sage observation that “You know, Pete has no business in that position,” and the failson was off and running:

But, you know, he’s the guy who had no business running for president but they let him do that cause he was gay and they check off a box and then he didn’t win, so “he’s the gay guy, so we gotta give him something, let’s make him transportation secretary,” what does he know about it? NOTHING! His failure, after failure, after failure are truly affecting the American people.

Just to make clear that Buttigieg is a feminine not-man, Junior also came back to the rightwing meme about Buttigieg’s paternity leave after adopting twin babies, mocking “the time he spent chest-feeding while we were in the midst of a supply chain crisis.” Haha, can you just imagine that little unmanly wimp trying to feed a baby?!

MORE: How Donald Trump’s Sociopathic Parenting Made Donald Trump Jr. The Winner He Is Today

As we all know, real men subject their children to emotional abuse so they’ll learn how to be manly, and that’s why the train crashed, the end.

[NTSB / Axios / NYDN / Insider]

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Donald Trump Tosses Hamberders, Lies At East Palestine Residents’ Heads, Crisis Over

Donald Trump made a campaign stop in East Palestine, Ohio, yesterday so he could pretend to make everything better there, bringing along a couple pallets of bottled water from his cheesy resorts and lying that his visit was the only reason the Biden administration is “finally” helping the community.

In mere reality, federal agencies have been in the small town on the border between Pennsylvania and Ohio since right after the February 3 derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train resulted in a huge spill of toxic chemicals. President Joe Biden has been in regular contact with Gov. Mike DeWine, and EPA Administrator Michael Regan visited East Palestine last week.

During a 10-minute speech in the town’s firehouse, Trump lied to the small crowd, claiming, “They were intending to do absolutely nothing for you.” Trump also

bragged about having a strong working relationship with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, noting that it initially had not planned to assist relief efforts. Trump claimed, without evidence, that the Biden administration only directed more resources because he announced that he would visit East Palestine.

“They changed their tune,” Trump said. “It was an amazing phenomenon.”

DeWine said last Friday that FEMA turned down his request for assistance because the agency is “most typically involved with disasters where there is tremendous home or property damage” following natural disasters. A few hours later, however, FEMA announced it would send a Regional Incident Management Assistance Team to the area, which arrived on Saturday. The team will “support ongoing operations, including incident coordination and ongoing assessments of potential long-term recovery needs,” according to FEMA’s announcement.

The agency probably didn’t mention that it was all Donald Trump’s doing because it’s jealous of how much better he is at throwing paper towels to disaster victims than it is.


On Monday, the EPA ordered Norfolk Southern to take full responsibility for cleaning up the toxic mess, warning that if the railroad slacks off, the EPA will do the cleanup and charge the company triple the cost.

Trump also made a few other brief stops in the town, accompanied by Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway. He drove around in a motorcade so he could pretend to be president still, and during his visit, he posed for a photo next to a pallet of Trump-labeled water that’s normally sold at his trash resorts. He claimed he was “bringing thousands of bottles of water—Trump Water, actually. Most of it. Some of it, we had to go to a much lesser quality water. You want to get those Trump bottles, I think, more than anybody else.”

He also rolled up to the town’s McDonald’s, where he made a show of ordering food for first responders and everyone in the restaurant, so his idiot sycophants could post fawning tweets about how Trump had done far more for the people of East Palestine than Joe Biden, who didn’t buy anyone any fast food at all. Professional rightwing trolls Brigitte Gabriel and Nick Adams both enthused that Trump water is in fact the very best water known to humanity, because even if it’s bottled by some generic company that slaps a Trump label on it, that makes it the best. We’re absolutely sure the McDonald’s food in East Palestine also tasted better than at any other franchise in America, at least for the five minutes Trump was there.

In a pathetic attempt to diminish the miracle of water and fast food, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates pointed out that, at the urging of railroad lobbyists, Trump had rolled back Obama-era regulations requiring faster electronic braking systems on some trains carrying hazardous liquids. Bates said in a statement, “Congressional Republicans laid the groundwork for the Trump administration to tear up requirements for more effective train brakes, and last year most House Republicans wanted to defund our ability to protect drinking water.”

The New York Times, not worrying too much about technical matters, notes that a “person close to Mr. Trump countered that federal officials said the cause appeared to be an axle, not a brake issue, and the repealed brake-related regulation had no bearing on the crash.”

This is where we point out, again, that if the train that crashed had had an electronic braking system, it may not have derailed at all, because the train’s old-fashioned air braking system applies brakes from one car to another as the air pressure changes, which causes cars at the end of the train to bump into those slowing ahead of them. Electronic brakes apply evenly to all cars at the same time, so that even if a car derails due to an axle or wheel bearing problem, there’s less likelihood of a pile-up of multiple cars following the derailment.

That said, the Obama regulation had been watered down by lobbying so that it didn’t apply to all trains, so it is indeed possible the Norfolk Southern freight might not have had electronic brakes. (Or maybe it would have, since the regulation might have led to wider adoption of the systems industry-wide.)

In any case, now that Trump has graced East Palestine with his presence, everything will just naturally be fine. Transportation Secretary Mayor Pete Buttigieg will visit the town today, no doubt because Trump made him do it, and the cleanup is continuing. But we bet Buttigieg won’t be anywhere near as wonderful as Trump, who, in typical bizarre fashion, told folks in East Palestine to “have a good time.”

You know, just like he did to the Puerto Rico hurricane victims. And after Hurricane Florence.And Hurricane Harvey. It’s just one of those mangled ways he speaks.

[NBC News / AP / Newsweek / NYT]

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Tucker-By-Numbers Reads His Russian Propaganda Mad Lib After Biden Ukraine Visit

Good morning.

Anyone could have guessed, after President Joe Biden’s widely successful and patriotic and good and decent Presidents’ Day visit to Ukraine, that Tucker Carlson would have been in overdrive last night to convince his viewers that NO, you did not see what you just saw, and that was BAD, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the ENEMY, and Vladimir Putin is your DADDY.

Etc.

It’s almost like Tucker-By-Numbers at this point. Any of us could make our own Tucker Kremlin Propaganda Mad Lib.


Hell, Fish Stick Fauntleroy could go on vacation and they could do a rotating cast of guest hosts to read Tucker Kremlin Propaganda Mad Libs. It’d be like the thing they’re doing on “‘The Daily Show” right now, but probably with way more incel guest hosts.

At the beginning of his show he lavished praise on Donald Trump, for being the most brilliant foreign policy mind ever.

It’s so funny because it’s always been pretty clear that Trump, who is, in point of fact, a fucking moron, did not come up with his foreign policy ideas by himself. It’s always seemed like SOMEBODY was filling his head with nonsense. It’s especially odd when Trump has ended up with highly specific beliefs about things that wouldn’t even be on most westerners’ radar, but would be particularly close to SOMEBODY’S heart.

There’s also the way Trump is certain he could end Russia’s war on Ukraine, by giving Russia everything it ever wanted and making Ukraine beg for mercy. Which is on brand, considering how he extorted that country to help him steal the 2020 election, in exchange for protection from Russia, and was impeached for it.

The Top 768,796 Reasons Putin Wants Trump Re-Elected, For GOP Rep. Chris Stewart And Idiots Like Him

Who Tells Trump Sweet Little Lies About Ukraine? OH, WHO THE F*CK YOU THINK?

Trump Has Genius Plan To End Russia/Ukraine War, It Is Give Putin Everything He Wants And F*ck Ukraine

It’s Impeachment-Eve-Thirty, Motherf*ckers! Let’s Remember What Trump’s Ukraine Scandal Is Really All About.

We Have Always Been At War With … Montenegro???

We Knew Trump Was Probably A Russian Intelligence Asset, But HOLY F*CK

But anyway! That monologue last night, hoo boy and boy howdy!

You can read it for yourself by clicking that link. The Fox News headline is that “Zelenskyy is an instrument of total destruction.” Tucker’s thesis was, “Donald Trump had far wiser instincts about American foreign policy than any leader in at least a generation, and he did it without the help of anyone.”

Every word of that sentence is:

Giphy

These were Trump’s very deep thoughts he came up with all by himself, according to Tucker:

“What’s the point of NATO?,” he asked nearly 30 years after the fall of the Soviet Union. No one in Washington could answer him. Shut up, racist, they replied, but Trump just kept going in his Trumpy way. “Why would we fight Russia?” he wondered. “Wouldn’t making Russia our enemy just drive Putin into the arms of China and create the most powerful and dangerous anti-American bloc in history?”

No one bothered to answer him. In fact, for the sin of asking, they called him a traitor to his country. They impeached him for it, and then they started a war with Putin. But in retrospect, Trump had asked a deeply patriotic question: If Russia ever joined forces with China, American global hegemony, its power would end instantly. You’d have the world’s largest land mass and largest natural gas reserves, allied with the world’s largest population and world’s largest economy.

You betcha. We impeached Trump for asking a question — it was a different question though — and then started a war with Putin over it. Nobody else started the war, like say the man who almost a year ago invaded a whole nother country, our ally, we started the war. Also: the fire!

Anyway, Trump had those very original questions about NATO, and also had very specific questions about the consequences of acknowledging that Russia is not our friend. Funny how the Trump and Tucker versions of the question both drastically overinflate the power of Russia. “The most powerful and dangerous anti-American bloc in history.” Lordy, the Putin fluffing. Gotta reassure him everybody still thinks he’s this big man, after his year of embarrassment in Ukraine.

You won’t be surprised to learn that it just went on and on and on like this. We imagine Russian state TV clipped a whole bunch of it to show Daddy. Probably this part too:

Zelenskyy himself is a very dark force. That is obvious if you watch him. It is unmistakable. Who could not see that? This man is a destroyer. He banned a Christian faith in his country and arrested nuns and priests. Oh, but he’s a hero, claim our leaders from Chuck Schumer to Mitch McConnell. No, Zelenskyy is not a hero. He is an instrument of total destruction. That is not a defense of his enemies. It’s just true and maybe that’s why Joe Biden is drawn to him.

Zelenskyy obviously did not ban Christian faith, but this is a lie Putin fluffers are telling.

Note that Tucker said, “It’s just true,” his assertions about Zelenskyy. That’s his weird tic when he’s demanding his viewers swallow propaganda. “It’s just true,” he says in a weird cadence while staring at the camera.

Tucker also said the air raid sirens that happened in Kyiv when Biden was there were “Potemkin air raid sirens.”

There was a ton more, including the requisite babbling about how if Biden really cared he would have gone to East Palestine, Ohio, but we are finished with this particular Mad Lib.

[Fox News]

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