“If at first you don’t succeed, try management.” Stephen Hawking
February 15, 2023, And Every Wednesday
By Linda Case Gibbons, Esq.
(Check out Lest We Forget and FYI.)
Silly people in East Palestine, Ohio! They thought electing people to do a job, meant those people would actually do the job.
When a train loaded with toxic-cancer-causing-chemicals derailed in their neighborhood on February 4, they thought their health and that of their animals would be tops on the list of local and federal authorities.
But they found nobody in charge was interested.
Or capable.
It’s nothing new. It’s what we all have been experiencing when Joe and other government officials were supposed to act, but didn’t.
We thought the Secretary of Defense Austin Lloyd would be furious that a Chinese spy balloon was travelling across our country, from sea to shining sea.
But he wasn’t.
We thought Secretary of Transportation Mayor Pete would hurry to the scene when toxic fumes were released from the train in Ohio.
But he didn’t.
Instead he maintained his customary “What Me Worry” attitude, and just as usual, announced the launch of a train safety investigation.
His National Transportation Safety Board reacted the same way.
According to The New York Times, Pete’s N.T.S.B. said its investigation “included examining tank car fittings, the locomotive event data recorder and surveillance video from a residence that showed what appeared to be a failure of a wheel bearing moments before the derailment.”
And added that their preliminary report could be expected at the end of the month.
In the meanwhile, there are dead fish. And chickens. And wolves.
And people reporting that they are feeling ill.
Nonetheless local officials assured residents it was safe to return to their homes, while recommending they drink only bottled water.
The Ohio Departments of Natural Resources and Agriculture said they’d received no reports of animals dying.
And when there was a statement from authorities, it was in a helpless, hopeless way.
Threats to people seemed low on the list. It compares rather alarmingly to indifference to the “famine” in Mao’s Cultural Revolution.
Yes, we’ve all expected that the agencies that have names, would do the jobs indicated by their names.
We believed the Federal Bureau of Investigation would investigate bad guys, instead of Donald Trump.
We thought the Department of Justice would defend justice, and not indict Donald Trump.
We expected the Environmental Protection Agency to protect the environment.
And we thought the Department of Defense would defend us.
But it was a private citizen who spotted the Chinese spy balloon in the sky over Montana on February 1.
Chase Doak, a resident of Billings, saw something, and said something. The Department of Defense didn’t.
It could be these governmental officials think their job is to do nothing.
Joe certainly never told Secretary-Mayor Pete, or Kamala Harris, or any of his administration, anything different.
So, planes continue to have near misses every day.
Supply chain problems persist.
And yesterday, another train derailed in Spartanburg, Arizona, and a tanker truck carrying nitric acid crashed on Interstate 10 in Tucson.
Through it all, Pete kept his lighthearted attitude, even though the buck for these problems stops at his desk.
Could it be that the people we elected, and those that are appointed, are doing what is expected?
To do nothing at all?
Hold the line, America.
And no. Al Gore and John Kerry had nothing to say.
Stay strong, Patriots.