GOP slammed for blaming bridge collapse on Biden's infrastructure bill | The Independent
By: Gustaf Kilander (The Independent)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Republicans are facing criticism for attempting to blame the Baltimore Bridge collapse on President Joe Biden's infrastructure bill.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed on Tuesday after a cargo ship crashed into it. Six construction workers are presumed dead.
South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace appeared on the rightwing channel Newsmax on Tuesday when she was asked why there are still old bridges and roads in the US after the passing of legislation to upgrade them.
"Because we're not spending it on roads and bridges," she claimed. "Look at the $1.2tn infrastructure bill that was done a couple of years ago that the left hails as this massive success, but it was mostly Green New Deal, actually, in that bill - 110bn went to surface transportation which is roads and bridges and of that 110bn, 70 billion went to public transportation leaving only 40bn for traditional roads and bridges."
Ms Mace inaccurately described the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure deal, which she didn't vote for but has taken credit for.
"The legislation will reauthorize surface transportation programs for five years and invest $110 billion in additional funding to repair our roads and bridges and support major, transformational projects," the White House said in November 2021.
In addition to that, separately, the White House noted that "The legislation includes $39 billion of new investment to modernize transit, in addition to continuing the existing transit programs for five years as part of surface transportation reauthorization".
"In total, the new investments and reauthorization in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal provide $89.9 billion in guaranteed funding for public transit over the next five years — the largest Federal investment in public transit in history," the White House added at the time.
Ms Mace went on to say, "If you live along the coast or you live near water, you know that our bridges are rusting out, you know that we have many, many bridges that have to be replaced and upgraded".
"You know, it's probably about a billion dollars of bridge every time and so I look at South Carolina when the infrastructure bill came through. We really only got $1 billion more than we otherwise would have over a five year period. I can barely build a bridge in my district for a billion dollars," she claimed.
Biden 2020 delegate Victor Shi wrote on X that "if you're blaming the Maryland bridge collapse on President Biden, you're a total & complete piece of s***. The bridge collapsing has nothing to do with him — all of them know it — and their attempt to blame this on him is as unpatriotic as it gets. Beneath contempt".
Author Christopher Moore added: "Breaking: Titanic striking iceberg blamed on Biden climate policy."
Epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding wrote that it's "Sickening that Republicans (Nancy Mace) are now blaming Joe Biden's infrastructure bill for this bridge accident. The sheer gall and naked opportunism and idiocy".
Democratic congressional candidate Mac Deford added that it's "shameful that @NancyMace has used the #FrancisScottKeyBridge collapse to score political points, especially when she can't get her facts straight. South Carolina is expected to receive nearly $5 billion over the next 5 years for highways and bridges from the bipartisan infrastructure law".
Far-right Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was hit with a community note on the platform after she asked if the bridge collapse could have been an "intentional attack".
The FBI office in Baltimore said in a statement, according to The New York Times, that there was "no specific and credible information to suggest any ties to terrorism".
In addition, Maryland Governor Wes Moore confirmed that the crew on the ship issued a mayday and communicated that they were having a power problem, leading to transportation officials stopping traffic.
"These people are heroes. They saved lives," Mr Moore said, according to The Baltimore Banner.
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Another day, another lesson in republican mendacity and hypocrisy.
Uh....Ms. Nancy...bridges aren't built over night....
She voted against the infrastructure bill, but like so many republican hypocrites, she is taking credit for it.
Oh for Christ's sakes, I'm just sick of the projection, deflection, denial, hypocrisy and all the goddamned lies.
What happens when they kill off the populations thru their unethical business practices? Who's going to buy their worthless shit then?
It's all about the money. Nothing else matters.
And power.
(Which are related...)
Said this before but here we go , False Churches, Bigotry and Greed = GOP !
Um, deplorable...
Quite.
And Large Marge raises her big, ugly head to try and stay relevant:
"Could this be a terrorist attack??!?!?!"
as she goes running looking for shelter
a tragedy in search of a conspiracy...
I don't think there's a more annoying human being in America than Nancy Mace.
It's almost like she's begging Donald Trump to do her.
SEPTEMBER 28, 2017
Trump’s Deregulation Push Is Setting the Stage for Major National Disasters Regulations Ensure Economic Prosperity, Prevent Catastrophes and Protect American Families
Some wacko Republicans blamed it on the mayor of Baltimore and DEI since the mayor is black...Unfuckingbelievabe.
I heard it was Obama.
lol
antifa
JHC
I heard it was Hillary coming up with new and exciting ways to make her displeasure known. This time the construction workers union were late on a payment.
I thought you were joking. JFC. Their whackjobbery has no limits/boundaries.
No-- it was Hillary's Laptop!
The bridge supports/abutments had little if any protections from ships running into them. The technology has been around for some time. Why didn't the city and/or the state tend to this protection? Even riprap would have worked.
Bridge protection systems - Wikipedia
Human nature being what it is, there is often no prevention done, only clean up. This attitude spans all walks of life.
Right?!!!! I mean there are ships running into bridges every day here in the US!!!! Are you fucking serious, Greg?
Tampa installed barriers Skyway bridge disaster
Not every day but:
March 20, 2009: A vessel pushing eight barges rammed into the Popp’s Ferry Bridge in Biloxi, Mississippi, resulting in a 150-foot section of the bridge collapsing into the bay.
May 26, 2002: A barge hit the Interstate 40 bridge over the Arkansas River at Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, collapsing a 500-foot section of road and plunging vehicles into the water. Fourteen people died and 11 were injured.
Sept. 15, 2001: A tugboat and barge struck the Queen Isabella Causeway in Port Isabel, Texas, causing a midsection of the bridge to tumble 80 feet into the bay below. Eight people died after motorists drove into the hole.
April 14, 1998: The Anne Holly tow traveling through the St. Louis Harbor rammed into the center span of the Eads Bridge. Eight barges broke away. Three of them hit a permanently moored gambling vessel below the bridge. Fifty people suffered minor injuries.
Sept. 22, 1993: Barges being pushed by a towboat in dense fog hit and displaced the Big Bayou Canot railroad bridge near Mobile, Alabama. Minutes later, an Amtrak train with 220 people aboard reached the displaced bridge and derailed, killing 47 people and injuring 103 people.
May 28, 1993: The towboat Chris, pushing the empty hopper barge DM3021, hit a support tier of the Judge William Seeber Bridge in New Orleans. Two spans and the two-column bent collapsed onto the barge. Two cars carrying three people fell with the four-lane bridge deck into a canal. One person died and two people were seriously injured.
Between the loss of life, cleanup, port shut down, new bridge built - $5B bill.
Not to mention meteors.
AP Exclusive: Transport safety rules rolled back under Trump
Ohio train disaster result of Trump/Republican deregulation
Care to pass on any other disinformation?
In a Feb. 16 Twitter thread , the chair of the federally independent National Transportation Safety Board, Jennifer Homendy , explained that the Obama rule the Trump administration rolled back would not have applied to that particular Norfolk Southern train.
“Some are saying the ECP (electronically controlled pneumatic) brake rule, if implemented, would’ve prevented this derailment. FALSE,” she wrote. “The ECP braking rule would’ve applied ONLY to HIGH HAZARD FLAMMABLE TRAINS. The train that derailed in East Palestine was a MIXED FREIGHT TRAIN containing only 3 placarded Class 3 flammable liquids cars.”
“This means even if the rule had gone into effect, this train wouldn’t have had ECP brakes,” Homendy said.
Yes....yes they will
what was the Trump administrations position on ECP brakes ?
Irrelevant to the post that he had anything to do with the train derailment.
hmmm. i guess you dont like the answer.
During the Obama administration, a safety rule was enacted in 2015 requiring electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes to be installed on all high-hazard flammable unit trains by 2023, allowing them to brake faster. However, the Trump administration later repealed this requirement. The decision was based on government reports that found the cost of implementing these brakes was not economically justified.
bing copilot
Hmmmm. I guess you don't care that it is irrelevant to the comments.
Good of you to answer your irrelevant question with an irrelevant answer. Post 9.2 gives a little more clarification on the issue that had nothing to do with the train crash being discussed if you would like though.
Do you even know how train brakes work? And why hasn't the Biden administration done anything about it?
The ECP brakes wouldn't have stopped the train much sooner because of the momentum of all that mass once the axle seized and train derailed.
And no, it is nor economically justified. Any greater cost to the railroads will be passed on to the shippers, and then on down the liner to the ultimate consumers.
There were over 4,000 derailments while trump was in office, what did he do about it?
NADA.
Didn’t they peak during the Carter years?
Good! Now that we’ve established your aversion to misinformation, I will look for consistency when the MAGA CROWD doubles down on the Hunter Biden et al lies.
Hey, you're good. You are correct.
They peaked in 1978 and have been reducing each year. But we still average around 1700 derailments per year, even today under Biden. But the above deflection to Trump was definitely noted with all the interest (NADA) it deserved.
So the Biden administration didn't do anything about it because the Trump administration didn't do anything about it?
Sounds about right.
Nice diversion attempt. You could have always said," ooops I wasn't aware that was debunked, thanks".
An October 2017 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) report found that the DOT’s approach to mandating ECP brakes over other technologies was “incomplete and unconvincing.”
An October 2016 GAO study determined the DOT’s justification for the ECP rule “lacked transparency” and was insufficient to enable third-party validation.
December 7, 2017
The U.S. Department of Transportation on December 4 announced that it will withdraw a 2015 regulation requiring the use of electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes on certain trains carrying flammable liquids, on the grounds that the safety benefits were inconclusive and the cost-benefit analysis was negative.
The original rule was published in May 2015, but later that year, in response to complaints from railroads, Congress enacted section 7311 of the FAST Act which ordered GAO and Transportation Research Board reviews of the rule, and once those reviews were finished, ordered the Secretary of Transportation to take an “evidence-based approach” to a reevaluation of the rule.
In October 2016, GAO found fault with DOT’s original calculation of the benefits of the rule, and TRB reported two months ago that it was “unable to make a conclusive statement concerning the emergency performance of ECP brakes relative to other braking systems.”
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) then performed a revised cost-benefit analysis, which found that the benefits of the rule could be quantified between $12 and $19 million per year while the costs of the rule would be between $35 and $46 million per year. After a comment period, DOT published a Federal Register notice this week announcing that “after careful review, and as mandated by Section 7311 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, the Department of Transportation has reviewed the final updated Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) and determined that the HM-251 Final Rule’s electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brake requirements are not economically justified. As the expected benefits do not exceed the expected costs, PHMSA and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will initiate a rulemaking to rescind the necessary regulatory provisions.”
Thank you
It would be more effective to put a modified EOT (end of train device) in middle of train than try to put EPC brakes on every car. EOTs report and activate train air brakes from where they are installed. All it would take is an additional gladhand connecter. Pressure reduction in train air brakes travels at 660 feet per second to apply airbrakes.
www.publicnotice.co /p/baltimore-bridge-collapse-maga-unhinged-response
In MAGA world, there are no accidents
Donald Trump has been talking disconcertingly often on the campaign trail about a looming terror attack . All indications are that Tuesday’s bridge collapse in Baltimore wasn’t that, but MAGAs aren’t about to let reality get in the way of pushing conspiracies useful to their cause.
First, the actual facts: Early Tuesday morning, a container ship lost power on Baltimore’s Patapsco River. Unable to navigate, the vessel crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, knocking out a support column. The bridge collapsed, and vehicles and construction workers plunged into the water. As of Tuesday evening, six workers are presumed dead.
The bridge collapse is a tragedy. But for many on the right, it’s also an opportunity to spread conspiracy theories, encourage chaos, push bigotry and resentment, stoke fears, and do Donald Trump’s bidding by smearing Biden. This ugly response is a burden on those directly affected in Baltimore and elsewhere. It’s also a deliberate effort to undermine collective solidarity and resilience.
Far right populist rage makes it harder to respond to emergencies, and often compounds them in terrifying ways. Facing down disasters requires calm, deliberation, and a willingness to set aside one’s immediate comfort and fear for a broader good. The right’s go-to response of panic and paranoia makes us all less safe by sowing confusion and promoting a reactionary brand of politics.
Disasters are by their nature unexpected and chaotic. It can be difficult to figure out causes and responsibilities in the heat of the moment, especially when the first priority has to be to rescue victims, not to assign blame.
There will no doubt be an investigation into what happened on the container ship. All indications at the moment though are that the explanation for the disaster is what it appears to be in footage of the incident — the ship’s power failed, resulting in an unintentional collision with the bridge. President Joe Biden referred to the disaster as an “accident” in remarks on Tuesday. Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said “there is absolutely no indication that there is any terrorism or that this was done on purpose.”
Have these reassurances stopped salivating MAGA vultures from rabid fear-mongering and irresponsible dipshittery? No, of course not.
Georgia congresswoman and reliable conspiracy theorist goon Marjorie Taylor Greene rushed to her keyboard to call for a “serious investigation” into what she said might be “an intentional attack.”
Even slightly less unhinged House Republicans couldn’t resist the lure of making completely irresponsible claims. As you can see in the below clip, South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace on Newsmax incoherently blamed the collapse on Biden’s infrastructure bill, alleging it only devoted “$40 billion for traditional roads and bridges.” (Mace voted against the infrastructure bill but then tried to take credit for it anyway.)
During a Newsmax hit of his own, American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp suggested the container ship failure was somehow caused by “drug-addled” employees and covid lockdowns. Fox host Maria Bartiromo, meanwhile, linked the disaster to “the wide open border.” (Watch below.)
While prominent right-wing voices recklessly speculated and conspiracy-mongered, the platform formerly known as twitter was absolutely overrun with racism. A number of users with significant platforms linked the bridge collapse to DEI , spread bigoted tropes about Baltimore’s mayor, and ludicrously alleged Biden is to blame .
The right’s smorgasbord of vaguely explicatory gabble is obviously intended to try to turn the horrific bridge collapse to partisan advantage. Republicans oppose diversity inclusion programs; they oppose anything associated with Biden; they oppose covid public health measures; and they oppose most all immigration. So they try to link the bridge collapse to these partisan talking points in the vague hope of smearing diversity programs and/or immigrants and/or covid mitigation efforts. (It should be noted that the missing men are from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, with local reporting indicating they have spouses and children.)
It’s also an election year, so the right is also hoping to smear Biden, to suggest his failures led to the collapse, or to daydream about bad things happening that could hurt his reelection prospects. This was especially apparent during Maria Bartiromo’s interview with Rick Scott, when she almost sounded giddy wondering if the bridge collapse “is gonna stoke inflation again.” That would hurt the country, and considering the circumstances it could hardly be considered Biden’s fault, but it might boost Trump — and boosting Trump is the goal of propagandists like Bartiromo and hacks like Scott.
Similarly, if the bridge collapse was the result of a foreign terrorist attack, as Greene seems to hope, or if it somehow (?) had something to do with immigration, that would give Trump a chance to spend weeks or months attacking Biden on border policies or implying he’s weak on crime.
Of course, the GOP is hampered here by the fact that the bridge collapse had nothing to do with any of these things. That makes it difficult for them to agree on a single talking point, and difficult for anyone not in the right-wing bubble to take them seriously.
Democratic and left anger over mass shootings has occasionally, painfully, led to partial gun control legislation, because the connection between mass shootings and easy access to guns is very clear. Trump’s mishandling of the covid pandemic harmed him badly in 2020 because the connection between his policies (or lack of policies) and mass death was equally clear. In contrast, right-wing foam-flecked screaming about the bridge collapse is not going to lead to legislative changes and is not going to harm Biden, because the whole thing is obviously nonsense. (Trump, for what it’s worth, dissed Baltimore as a “ rodent infested mess ” when he was in office, and one wonders if he would’ve tried to shake down the Maryland governor for political dirt before agreeing to help with the rebuilding effort.)
Foaming can have other benefits of course. Mace and Greene get right-wing news hits in part because they can be counted on for irresponsible batshittery, and spewing irresponsible batshittery on right-wing news is a boost to fundraising. Similarly, right-wing social media influencers can build their brands and paychecks by rushing to their keyboards with nonsense conspiracy theories pegged to the day’s news, especially if the day’s news involves an unexpected tragedy.
Beyond the personal incentives, though, MAGA has a collective interest in pushing conspiracies, even if those conspiracies are too incoherent to promote any specific policy or identify a specific target of hate.
Conspiracy theories undermine faith in a shared truth or a shared community. MAGA isn’t really trying to get people to believe any one story. They’re just trying to sow doubt. If nobody can be trusted, if everyone is corrupt, then Trump and his ilk are no worse than anyone else. Conspiracy theories alienate people from the democratic process. That’s good for Trump, who hates democracy.
In addition to undermining trust in the political process, conspiracy theories also undermine our trust in each other. This is especially important for MAGA during disasters because, as Rebecca Solnit has pointed out, disasters are often a moment when people demonstrate a great capacity for self-sacrifice, community, and solidarity. Solnit’s 2009 book “A Paradise Built in Hell” discusses how during disasters — such as the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake — people risk their lives for one another, care for each other, cook for each other. While “horrible in itself,” she adds that disaster “is sometimes a door back into paradise, the paradise at least in which we are who we hope to be, do the work we desire, and are each our sister’s and brother’s keeper.”
Even the covid pandemic, which forced people to isolate and separate, opened up opportunities for people to aid and support one another. Solnit points out that people did food runs for each other; Dolly Parton began offering free lessons for kids and Heather Cox Richardson began giving free history lessons online. Even at the national level, the pandemic gave Democrats an opening to pass the expanded child tax credit, which led to massive reductions in child poverty before it lapsed in 2022.
Solnit says in her book that authorities often become nervous and even violent when people start working together under difficult, chaotic situations. After the San Francisco quake, police attacked “looters” — that is, people searching abandoned stores for desperately needed supplies for themselves and their communities. In New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, police officers shot people crossing a highway to try to get to safety, killing two and wounding four.
MAGA, in particular, is a movement built on stoking divisions and cultivating paranoid fear of Black people, immigrants, LGBT people, Muslims, Jews, and other marginalized people. Spreading conspiracy theories following disasters is a way to prevent the formation of solidarity, community, and trust. It’s a way for the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world to signal to their followers to embrace their worst selves.
This is why MAGA has been so opposed to common sense covid policies like masking, vaccination, and testing. As a result, Republican excess death rates ended up substantially higher than those of Democrats. But that was a small price to pay for putting the brakes on a potential outbreak of trust, community, and caring.
Disasters like covid, or like the Baltimore bridge collapse, are moments when we can pull together or turn on one another. The right fears its power will be diminished going forward if we choose the first. They flood the public sphere with hate, conspiracy theories, and nonsense to forestall any option but bad ones.
Excellent post. Thanks!
...the reduction of every major news event to hateful memes is a way of saying to fellow right-wingers (and potential right-wingers): Yes, even in this moment, you and I are the people everyone should care about. We're straight white people. We are the center of the universe. All other people -- non-whites, LGBT people, the Democratic politicians we hate -- are inferior. Even in this moment of tragedy, we are still the world's main characters. If we can only drive all liberals and queers and feminists and dark-skinned people from politics, we will rule, as we're meant to. So don't develop feelings for the people who've been hurt. Remain narcissistic and self-focused. It's not only acceptable, it's patriotic -- after all, everyone who's not like us is subhuman and undeserving and ridiculous.
So we have this:
And some attacks on the politicians and policies right-wingers hate, collected here :
Many people ask why Trump voters -- and Republican voters in general -- vote against what would seem to be their own economic intrerests. This is why. Trump and other Republicans tell them they have value and other people don't. They say those other people deserve to suffer, while members of the right-wing tribe don't. They give voters permission to hate, and to reject empathy. That may not win every election for the GOP, but it wins the party more elections than it deserves to win.
Marjorie Taylor Greene said today about the bridge collapse: "Everyone knows it was caused by Jewish Space Lasers".
I took these on my last cruise out of Baltimore. As a civil engineer I found the lack of protection on these piers a little shocking. However, to blame the POTUS for a random disaster is beyond stupid. Totally par for the course for Republicans though.