If this happened 3 years from now it would still be Biden's fault. I also heard from a friend he trashed Buttigieg as well, not surprising. As I stated to my friend- does he have any proof that the people involved where "DEI" and not people very well qualified for their positions? Probably not. DEI is going to be the scapegoat for everything for a very long time
The goal of DEI is to hire equally qualified candidates to a get diverse thinking work force. Trump's hires are the opposite. Male, white and definitely not qualified. Only people who enjoyed privilege their whole life due to gender and color think that equality is unfair.
It's just appalling to me that the term DEI has gotten so conflated that people think it means hiring "unqualified but diverse" people in place of qualified "white" candidates. He spews that DEI is discrimination against white candidates. Making your workplace diverse does not mean compromising quality.
DEI can improve morale, and it has been shown to improve profits in the private sector. I agree it could also improve the quality of the workforce. One aspect of DEI is to recruit from a broader applicant pool. If the best-qualified person for the job doesn't even know the job exists, the employer can't hire them. Or someone may choose not to apply because the workplace doesn't have a reputation for welcoming women or minorities.
DEI "hires" are hires of qualified individuals. DEI does not advocate for or put unqualified individuals in jobs. A supervisor or manager determines who gets a job. The tRump administration is the one putting unqualified individuals in the most senior positions of our government. Let's stay on message with that.
And job applications have individual names and all identifying information blacked out or erased. The panel doing the hiring have no idea of the physical characteristics of the applicants, only their merits.
Rambling press conference, assigning blame, spewing unfounded statements as though they were proof positive and truthful - scapegoats are in place of personal character.
Wouldn't it be SO satisfying if once - just once - someone during a press conference yelled "You f*cking moron! You don't know what you are talking about! Shut your trap! Go drink ketchup!"
What would be equally refreshing is if the press would NOT ask him questions...at all. They know the responses are lies. Why bother to "normalize" his pressers?
A reporter gently questioned his statement blaming DEI at the press conference. I wished someone had brought up the firing of the TSA head, dissolving the Aviation Safety group and the resignation of the FAA president last week to clearly show the incompetenace and lack of regards to the publics' safety. How many times have the Repugs said they are not looking at the past and moving forward, well stop blaming Biden et al.
Sadly, I was waiting for that one. There is no bottom deep enough to describe how low he will go. My heart is broken for the friends and families of every person in that accident. Now is not the time for playing the blame game. It is time for the officials to investigate, but for most of the rest of us, it is time to be still and find ways to support.
I would say that I’m surprised but I’m truly not. Did he even express sympathy to the families - I’m guessing not. His only line is BLAME THE DEMOCRATS FOR EVERYTHING
Can we stop trashing our own side? No one in this country has been in this situation before. Even the first Trump administration was not like this. There were still grownups in the WH. And yet, you seem to be expecting Democrats to have all the answers within two weeks. My veteran dad used to say “Friendly fire leaves you just as dead as enemy fire.” Frankly, we can’t afford the casualties. Let’s work with our own side to achieve Democratic unity and fierce resistance, and save our verbal ammo for those we oppose.
Unfortunately I find the Democrats are playing nice and trying to be the adult in the room. The rules of the game have changed. It's not your fathers way of politics anymore. They can still be the adult in the room but sometimes they got release the rebellious teenager to hit back.
If the Dems are just shell shocked and trying to figure out a cohesive plan, okay. We can be patient. If they are trying to hide and be inconspicuous and ride out the coming calamities unscathed, a pox upon them! No way we all can avoid getting a little bloody on this one.
What we need is more voters. I check around 161 million registered voters, our population is 350 million or so + or - motivation is what we need . There are a lot of unregistered voters out in the us who are in the whirlwind with the rest of us. Like it or not and they must choose.
I heard some excerpts from that, then went to the Guardian for fuller coverage. (I can’t listen to the Cheeto in Chief; it’s like listening to a fork stuck in a garbage disposal.) I AM APPALLED. He’s as Rex Tillerson said, a fucking moron. And also a terrible creature.
My newly founded group: Q ANON for Liberals just announced that after a very thorough investigation they found that Steven Miller was piloting the Black Hawk and it's passengers were ICE agents chasing that plane from Witcita because of all the illegal aliens on it. They had to crash it before it landed and they all escaped
Perfect description of everything FOTUS does. Same as when he initiated the Afghan withdrawal agreement with the Taliban in 2020. And left the disaster waiting to happen for Biden.
When I was in college the 1st time, lo those many years ago, a common insult was "turkey." I decided that meant someone who was aggressively stupid. Does that work?
At this moment in history there is NOTHING more dangerous to the United States of America than a Republican holding public office. The higher the office, the greater the danger.
Every single one of them is a danger to the economy, a danger to national security, a danger to the democracy, a danger to public safety, and a danger to the average citizen's health, well-being, and livelihood. There is quite literally nothing that they won't say and nothing that they won't do in order to stay in power.
Every Republican of principle has departed or been forced out. What's left is no longer a political party at all, but a criminal enterprise bent on looting and destroying this country.
Expect higher prices, lower wages, more airplane crashes, more bridge collapses, more cancer, less health care, more climate disasters, less disaster relief, more voter suppression and disenfrachisement, gerrymandering, higher taxes for the average citizen, court decisions restricting civil rights, empowerment of right-wing militias and hate groups, and more and bigger armed conflicts around the world. Also expect lies, spin, gaslighting, fabrications, misdirection, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, hate-mongering, and excuses.
There are two things this week that are positive. a) a judge slapped a restraining order on the admin due to the money freeze and their total incompetence while the court writes up a decision about why it's unconstitutional after the admin pretended to withdraw it because of public outcry and b) the latest poling says trump has the lowest ever since polling approval rating for an admin this early @ 48% disapproval. What would have to happen for that approval number to go up? Trump is blaming re DC crash because he's already on his heels from the last 10 days. Shock and awe indeed.
More women dying from a miscarriage, more doctors being charged with murder for sending abortion pills to desperate pregnant women and teens, more women arrested for abortion, more misery in general.
Since the plane was in a traditional path to land at the airport, the helicopter should have anticipated planes would be in that area, they should have seen it. Plus they were warned by air traffic control. Looks like this is on Hegseth, in charge of the military less than a week and a military helicopter takes down a civilian aircraft from Kansas trying to land in Washington D.C.
There is going to be a LOT of finger pointing about this one. As a retired airline pilot, I am going to be watching for why the aircraft's TCAS (Traffic/collision avoidance system) did not prevent this collision.
Because the plane was already low enough that it was disabled, likely. The bigger question is why a military helicopter flying near an airport wouldn't know enough not to get into the path of a landing commercial airliner. They shouldn't have been there, they should have seen the plane, and they were warned by the air traffic controller, but such a warning should not even have been necessary given where they were. Just common sense to watch out for landing planes.
And why on earth would they be doing training for anything in a traditional landing path of the Washington D.C. Airport or anywhere near the airport for that matter? Hegseth is unfit to be Secretary of Defense. Trump is unfit to be president making such appointments and then blackmailing Senators into confirming them.
And yet this type of accident hadn't occurred before. Helicopters are maneuverable and would be able to get out of the way quickly. They had time when they were warned by air traffic control, and they should have been aware of the plane's path before Air Traffic Control gave them that notification. I doubt they are normally training anywhere near the landing corridors of an airport, though.
I read that there is a significant amount of helicopter traffic to the military base there just because it’s the nation’s capital and they transport government officials. A very congested area for air traffic.
"Reagan" is trained as a "special airport," which means that it is recognized as difficult and require special training. Most of that is due to the surrounding prohibited areas, but that creates very tight corridors for maneuvering. A flight crew is often monitoring those corridors more closely than surrounding traffic.
I'm not sure a Blackhawk is the type of helicopter that would be used for ordinary transport, though. Some say it was a training exercise involving night goggles. Whatever, their instructions to be there came from those higher up the chain. It was incompetence of this current administration, their crazy appointments of unqualified white men to fill every vacancy while senators are blackmailed into acquiescing to these appointments they know full well are terrible and will harm our country.
Hegseth said they had night goggles on. Don’t know much about those but read where someone else said they could be a problem in that kind of situation with lots of fast moving lights. Also why did they not respond to the ATC? I worry it could be sabotage. And I worry with the current admin’s need to avoid any accountability we will never know what really happened. I heard they did recover one of the 2 black boxes from the plane. Feel so heartbroken for all the families. 💔
My understanding is that they did try to prevent it. Air traffic told the helicopter to land, to get out of the way. They played a tape of this recording on the air.
Hegseth probably ordered the helicopter to crash into the plane. (or, since humans were still flying it, had Elon Musk re-program it to automatically crash into the plane without human intervention). I'm very sorry for the three service members who lost their lives too.
The FAA has confirmed that the control tower was understaffed by air traffic controllers at the time of the accident, with one person doing the job of two.
Jay, I've read that Trump fired the head of the FAA on January 20th and quickly put an acting one in this morning. Do you know if this is true, and would it be a contributing factor to the crash?
I had to finally mute his ‘condolences’ address as he canNOT keep on point and uses it to blast and blame instead of keeping it short and heartfelt (not that he has one) 😡
Exactly. He always has to make everything about himself, how great he is, and to place blame elsewhere else. His message surely did not console the families, the American people.
I'm only surprised that he isn't giving his thumbs up sign like he did at Arlington with that (MAGA) family while standing on the grave of the person they were supposed to be mourning.
He is just so disgusting. As with the LA fires, he leads with blame. Not an empathetic thought in his brain for the families of the victims of this horrific accident. First thing should be condolences and support ❤️🩹Plenty of time for questions.
Exactly!!! But under this regime we have idiots in charge who could not find their butts with a map so more lives will be lost and WE MUST STAND STRONG!! LOUD AND PROUD!
Reagan as an airport should not exist. The runways are super short and there are close calls all the time. Watch it from a high-rise in Crystal City and you’ll see at least one, if not several. It’s there solely because members of Congress don’t want to drive to Dulles, which is 28 miles away. At the VERY least they need more air traffic controllers (and I’m NOT saying this was their fault, btw).
I admit that I started going down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole and blaming Trump, but this seems like the most credible explanation. There’s plenty to blame him for and there will be more, but it’s important to stick to facts and not lose our focus. Oh, and of course it was a Democratic Senator who pointed out the problem.
Having lived in Virginia for about 4 years before moving north, I can say Kaine is a good Senator. He cares about his state and the humans and critters that live there!
Not really: The four Democratic senators from the DC area, Virginia’s Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and Maryland’s Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, argued in spring of 2024 that expanding flights at Reagan International Airport would pose a safety risk. They were outgunned by lawmakers who wanted the convenience of extra flights home for themselves. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/30/expanded-flights-reagan-national-airport-00155212
Why do you think it would be right for Trump to blame Pete Buttigieg and Biden? Buttigieg had no power to stop the Congressional action that added flight to the over-scheduled airport. And Biden would have had to veto the entire bill in order to stop addition of 10 flights to Reagan/National.
I'm just thinking in terms of frump thought process- the bill was introduced and passed under Biden. Both Biden and Buttigieg "let it pass" (frump thought process). I have since watched a video of experts (real experts, not frump experts) who ultimately feel all the air traffic could have been confusing. If quite literally it was pilot confusion, he will jump on the fact that Biden, and by extension Buttigieg, made a busy airport busier and honestly he wouldn't be all wrong in that assessment. Did 10 flights make that much of a difference? They will say it did. It's an out, it's at least a semi-solid argument for laying blame to which the public will latch onto.
I get the frustration. But it’s traditional to allow the president to pick his cabinet so long as there are not clear disqualifying factors, rather than to politicize every nominee. Duffy is inexperienced but served as a Congressman for many years, and that’s likely going to mean he gets through unless there is something in his background that would stop the nomination in its tracks. He would have probably been confirmed by all senators had the freeze not going into effect, eliciting protest votes from many senators.
You are correct about the tradition, but it is also traditional for the president not to be a felon. Democrats should not act as if things are normal, because they aren’t. No cooperation on anything, because that gives the Administration an undeserved aura of legitimacy.
Jay's awesome, probably my favorite political substacker, but I agree with you. Dems need to resist absolutely everything Trump does and be a complete, unequivocal blockade at all times, no matter how useless it is to be so. Traditional politics do not work with MAGA. I hope that era returns. But for now, it's gone. Vote no on everything. If MAGA tries to pass a resolution praising the pope, vote NO. Or even praising Obama, for that matter.
The problem that some Dems have with voting no even on fairly competent nominees is fear of what will be nominated next time. (I deliberately didn't say who.) We know that trump abused the use of "interim" fillers of positions needing Senate Approval, thereby removing ALL oversight. Because of the fractures in the GOP, it isn't clear that actual competence can get confirmed without Dem help.
Trump just gave a press conference where he blamed Biden and DEI for the crash.
If this happened 3 years from now it would still be Biden's fault. I also heard from a friend he trashed Buttigieg as well, not surprising. As I stated to my friend- does he have any proof that the people involved where "DEI" and not people very well qualified for their positions? Probably not. DEI is going to be the scapegoat for everything for a very long time
Are not the very unqualified people in the Trump cabinet, by definition, DEI hires, themselves?
The goal of DEI is to hire equally qualified candidates to a get diverse thinking work force. Trump's hires are the opposite. Male, white and definitely not qualified. Only people who enjoyed privilege their whole life due to gender and color think that equality is unfair.
It's just appalling to me that the term DEI has gotten so conflated that people think it means hiring "unqualified but diverse" people in place of qualified "white" candidates. He spews that DEI is discrimination against white candidates. Making your workplace diverse does not mean compromising quality.
What you said, and if fact, DEI could well improve quality, and probably would. (Reminding me of the Hidden Figures movie.)
DEI can improve morale, and it has been shown to improve profits in the private sector. I agree it could also improve the quality of the workforce. One aspect of DEI is to recruit from a broader applicant pool. If the best-qualified person for the job doesn't even know the job exists, the employer can't hire them. Or someone may choose not to apply because the workplace doesn't have a reputation for welcoming women or minorities.
Given how low you have to flunk the IQ test to qualify for membership in MAGA, it's definitely a case of "hire the mentally not-there."
D: Dastardly, Drunk, Deficit, Disastrous
E: Egregious, Embarrassing
I: Incompetent, Ignorant
yes. The I stands for intelligence and lack thereof.
Maybe not "equity".
Yes, Pam, quite the irony.
???
DEI "hires" are hires of qualified individuals. DEI does not advocate for or put unqualified individuals in jobs. A supervisor or manager determines who gets a job. The tRump administration is the one putting unqualified individuals in the most senior positions of our government. Let's stay on message with that.
And job applications have individual names and all identifying information blacked out or erased. The panel doing the hiring have no idea of the physical characteristics of the applicants, only their merits.
I didn't know this. But it is logically the best way to keep hiring fair and equal
Rambling press conference, assigning blame, spewing unfounded statements as though they were proof positive and truthful - scapegoats are in place of personal character.
Wouldn't it be SO satisfying if once - just once - someone during a press conference yelled "You f*cking moron! You don't know what you are talking about! Shut your trap! Go drink ketchup!"
Even a variation of this could be the first of an increasing volley from
bystanders...
What would be equally refreshing is if the press would NOT ask him questions...at all. They know the responses are lies. Why bother to "normalize" his pressers?
Right? Like.... why does anyone show up anymore? Why bother? Or, if you INSIST on showing up, at least bring in some rotten tomatoes.
Yes! Rotten tomatoes!
A reporter gently questioned his statement blaming DEI at the press conference. I wished someone had brought up the firing of the TSA head, dissolving the Aviation Safety group and the resignation of the FAA president last week to clearly show the incompetenace and lack of regards to the publics' safety. How many times have the Repugs said they are not looking at the past and moving forward, well stop blaming Biden et al.
And now he's drug Obama back into this. He has a thing for Obama
SICK!
And Trump's like minded Racist supporters will continue to believe the Garbage Spewing from their Messiah's Mouth!
Sadly, I was waiting for that one. There is no bottom deep enough to describe how low he will go. My heart is broken for the friends and families of every person in that accident. Now is not the time for playing the blame game. It is time for the officials to investigate, but for most of the rest of us, it is time to be still and find ways to support.
since it's the trump Administration doing the "investigation, oh did I say whitewash- who would believe the results.
I would say that I’m surprised but I’m truly not. Did he even express sympathy to the families - I’m guessing not. His only line is BLAME THE DEMOCRATS FOR EVERYTHING
Worked for Nixon--for a while.
And F*** "thoughts and prayers, especially from these pseudo "Christians."
Surprisingly, He did in his first statement. But it was quickly followed by his typical blame the Democrats.
This is his MO, he refuses to accept responsibility for anything that doesn't Agrandize him!
DCA crash should be Trump's Benghazi... If the pathetic Dems knew what to do 😡
Can we stop trashing our own side? No one in this country has been in this situation before. Even the first Trump administration was not like this. There were still grownups in the WH. And yet, you seem to be expecting Democrats to have all the answers within two weeks. My veteran dad used to say “Friendly fire leaves you just as dead as enemy fire.” Frankly, we can’t afford the casualties. Let’s work with our own side to achieve Democratic unity and fierce resistance, and save our verbal ammo for those we oppose.
Unfortunately I find the Democrats are playing nice and trying to be the adult in the room. The rules of the game have changed. It's not your fathers way of politics anymore. They can still be the adult in the room but sometimes they got release the rebellious teenager to hit back.
Totally agree. Dems are not the enemy or the problem. We need to help each other and lift each other up.
If the Dems are just shell shocked and trying to figure out a cohesive plan, okay. We can be patient. If they are trying to hide and be inconspicuous and ride out the coming calamities unscathed, a pox upon them! No way we all can avoid getting a little bloody on this one.
No
What we need is more voters. I check around 161 million registered voters, our population is 350 million or so + or - motivation is what we need . There are a lot of unregistered voters out in the us who are in the whirlwind with the rest of us. Like it or not and they must choose.
Riversong: YES PLEASE! (hey, are you a Doctor Who fan?)
Nope, once again they'll take the High Road and end up Getting HOSED!
I heard some excerpts from that, then went to the Guardian for fuller coverage. (I can’t listen to the Cheeto in Chief; it’s like listening to a fork stuck in a garbage disposal.) I AM APPALLED. He’s as Rex Tillerson said, a fucking moron. And also a terrible creature.
Correct me if I'm wrong but, I can't come up with a single case where FOTUS made anything better for the American people.
But of course. It is ALWAYS someone else's fault.
Of course he did. It's all they have: hate, anger, fear, and racism.
#fucktrump
I can't even believe it.
Why? Predicted it.
I mean yeah, I can believe it. But FFS.
My newly founded group: Q ANON for Liberals just announced that after a very thorough investigation they found that Steven Miller was piloting the Black Hawk and it's passengers were ICE agents chasing that plane from Witcita because of all the illegal aliens on it. They had to crash it before it landed and they all escaped
Of course he did!
Ah, I was wondering when that was going to happen.
Did he at least have the decency to mention the victims?
I was thinking the same thing. I haven't heard it or read about it.
He's probably mad at them for ruining his first days back in office.
I am not surprised.
🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
My husband put it into words for me this morning: malicious incompetence is all the orange moron can offer.
"Malicious incompetence." Thank you, and your husband. I'm going to be using that phrase, a lot, and I suggest that everyone else do so as well.
Perfect description of everything FOTUS does. Same as when he initiated the Afghan withdrawal agreement with the Taliban in 2020. And left the disaster waiting to happen for Biden.
Well put 👏
When I was in college the 1st time, lo those many years ago, a common insult was "turkey." I decided that meant someone who was aggressively stupid. Does that work?
Thank you, Jay.
At this moment in history there is NOTHING more dangerous to the United States of America than a Republican holding public office. The higher the office, the greater the danger.
Every single one of them is a danger to the economy, a danger to national security, a danger to the democracy, a danger to public safety, and a danger to the average citizen's health, well-being, and livelihood. There is quite literally nothing that they won't say and nothing that they won't do in order to stay in power.
Every Republican of principle has departed or been forced out. What's left is no longer a political party at all, but a criminal enterprise bent on looting and destroying this country.
Expect higher prices, lower wages, more airplane crashes, more bridge collapses, more cancer, less health care, more climate disasters, less disaster relief, more voter suppression and disenfrachisement, gerrymandering, higher taxes for the average citizen, court decisions restricting civil rights, empowerment of right-wing militias and hate groups, and more and bigger armed conflicts around the world. Also expect lies, spin, gaslighting, fabrications, misdirection, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, hate-mongering, and excuses.
Exactly right, and as we are already seeing every one of these horrors will be blamed on Democrats. And DEI.
Hence my final clause.
And his Moronic Supporters will Gobble Up this Crap!
BINGO
Yup.
There are two things this week that are positive. a) a judge slapped a restraining order on the admin due to the money freeze and their total incompetence while the court writes up a decision about why it's unconstitutional after the admin pretended to withdraw it because of public outcry and b) the latest poling says trump has the lowest ever since polling approval rating for an admin this early @ 48% disapproval. What would have to happen for that approval number to go up? Trump is blaming re DC crash because he's already on his heels from the last 10 days. Shock and awe indeed.
I will expect it, but I will hope for better. Especially when The People start rising up.
More women dying from a miscarriage, more doctors being charged with murder for sending abortion pills to desperate pregnant women and teens, more women arrested for abortion, more misery in general.
😿
Since the plane was in a traditional path to land at the airport, the helicopter should have anticipated planes would be in that area, they should have seen it. Plus they were warned by air traffic control. Looks like this is on Hegseth, in charge of the military less than a week and a military helicopter takes down a civilian aircraft from Kansas trying to land in Washington D.C.
There is going to be a LOT of finger pointing about this one. As a retired airline pilot, I am going to be watching for why the aircraft's TCAS (Traffic/collision avoidance system) did not prevent this collision.
Because the plane was already low enough that it was disabled, likely. The bigger question is why a military helicopter flying near an airport wouldn't know enough not to get into the path of a landing commercial airliner. They shouldn't have been there, they should have seen the plane, and they were warned by the air traffic controller, but such a warning should not even have been necessary given where they were. Just common sense to watch out for landing planes.
I don't know, but if the helicopter pilot was training with night vision goggles on their peripheral vision would've been severely restricted.
And why on earth would they be doing training for anything in a traditional landing path of the Washington D.C. Airport or anywhere near the airport for that matter? Hegseth is unfit to be Secretary of Defense. Trump is unfit to be president making such appointments and then blackmailing Senators into confirming them.
As I understand it, aircraft training from nearby military bases is standard there. Has been for years.
And yet this type of accident hadn't occurred before. Helicopters are maneuverable and would be able to get out of the way quickly. They had time when they were warned by air traffic control, and they should have been aware of the plane's path before Air Traffic Control gave them that notification. I doubt they are normally training anywhere near the landing corridors of an airport, though.
I read that there is a significant amount of helicopter traffic to the military base there just because it’s the nation’s capital and they transport government officials. A very congested area for air traffic.
"Reagan" is trained as a "special airport," which means that it is recognized as difficult and require special training. Most of that is due to the surrounding prohibited areas, but that creates very tight corridors for maneuvering. A flight crew is often monitoring those corridors more closely than surrounding traffic.
I'm not sure a Blackhawk is the type of helicopter that would be used for ordinary transport, though. Some say it was a training exercise involving night goggles. Whatever, their instructions to be there came from those higher up the chain. It was incompetence of this current administration, their crazy appointments of unqualified white men to fill every vacancy while senators are blackmailed into acquiescing to these appointments they know full well are terrible and will harm our country.
Hegseth said they had night goggles on. Don’t know much about those but read where someone else said they could be a problem in that kind of situation with lots of fast moving lights. Also why did they not respond to the ATC? I worry it could be sabotage. And I worry with the current admin’s need to avoid any accountability we will never know what really happened. I heard they did recover one of the 2 black boxes from the plane. Feel so heartbroken for all the families. 💔
My understanding is that they did try to prevent it. Air traffic told the helicopter to land, to get out of the way. They played a tape of this recording on the air.
One Socalled expert stated that the TCAS would be turned off because the aircraft was on final approach.
I heard it got hit from behind?
The plane’s nose hit the port side of the copter
I thought I’d read that the helicopter hit the jet from behind.
Boobs gonna boob. Hegseth should be relieved, clearly he’s in way over his head as is his boss. Idiots
Hegseth probably ordered the helicopter to crash into the plane. (or, since humans were still flying it, had Elon Musk re-program it to automatically crash into the plane without human intervention). I'm very sorry for the three service members who lost their lives too.
I doubt it was anything like that. More likely than not, just sheer incompetence and lack of intelligent oversight.
How can you joke about such a tragedy?
The FAA has confirmed that the control tower was understaffed by air traffic controllers at the time of the accident, with one person doing the job of two.
Jay, I've read that Trump fired the head of the FAA on January 20th and quickly put an acting one in this morning. Do you know if this is true, and would it be a contributing factor to the crash?
we need to go back in time to Reagan and his breaking of the PATCO strike to truly understand the precarious positioning. our air traffic towers.
Yep. Our beloved glorious past president is to blame for much that is effed up in this country, starting with the economy
And the 50 trillion taken from us to give to the top 1%
I had to finally mute his ‘condolences’ address as he canNOT keep on point and uses it to blast and blame instead of keeping it short and heartfelt (not that he has one) 😡
Exactly. He always has to make everything about himself, how great he is, and to place blame elsewhere else. His message surely did not console the families, the American people.
Elsewhere or everywhere else
Yeah, “heartfelt” requires an actual soul. No evidence TFG (Philly usage of the term) ever had one.
And a heart.
For once in his life he should have the good sense to stick to the script!
Oh wait.. didn’t he SAY he has “common sense”? 🤨
file:///var/mobile/Library/SMS/Attachments/72/02/BB0F8F82-EBE2-4784-A8A8-3DEA6EB2639C/IMG_3707.png
I'm only surprised that he isn't giving his thumbs up sign like he did at Arlington with that (MAGA) family while standing on the grave of the person they were supposed to be mourning.
tRump is on TV exploiting the tragedy to trash talk everyone else when it was HIS chaos that most likely caused this
Great job Pete Hegseth! Way to make the military more lethal eh?
yeah, the Warrior Ethos at work
He is just so disgusting. As with the LA fires, he leads with blame. Not an empathetic thought in his brain for the families of the victims of this horrific accident. First thing should be condolences and support ❤️🩹Plenty of time for questions.
Exactly!!! But under this regime we have idiots in charge who could not find their butts with a map so more lives will be lost and WE MUST STAND STRONG!! LOUD AND PROUD!
Thanks for the new to me term”couldn’t find their butts with a map”
Reagan as an airport should not exist. The runways are super short and there are close calls all the time. Watch it from a high-rise in Crystal City and you’ll see at least one, if not several. It’s there solely because members of Congress don’t want to drive to Dulles, which is 28 miles away. At the VERY least they need more air traffic controllers (and I’m NOT saying this was their fault, btw).
Also, just a couple of years ago, CONGRESS passed legislation that added flights to the already crowded airport. You know how special they are.
"It’s certainly fair to ask if the administration knows what it’s doing and where its priorities truly are."
I think we know the answer, unfortunately. I wonder how long 45-47 can make "Biden/DEI" stick?
This is what likely led to the crash: https://amp.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article299425614.html
I admit that I started going down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole and blaming Trump, but this seems like the most credible explanation. There’s plenty to blame him for and there will be more, but it’s important to stick to facts and not lose our focus. Oh, and of course it was a Democratic Senator who pointed out the problem.
Having lived in Virginia for about 4 years before moving north, I can say Kaine is a good Senator. He cares about his state and the humans and critters that live there!
It's Trump's fault. 100 percent
Though this would actually make trump right laying the blame on Biden and Buttigieg. I mean not the DEI part but the rest of it.
Not really: The four Democratic senators from the DC area, Virginia’s Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and Maryland’s Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, argued in spring of 2024 that expanding flights at Reagan International Airport would pose a safety risk. They were outgunned by lawmakers who wanted the convenience of extra flights home for themselves. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/30/expanded-flights-reagan-national-airport-00155212
I mean I get it, think in "trump terms" though
Why do you think it would be right for Trump to blame Pete Buttigieg and Biden? Buttigieg had no power to stop the Congressional action that added flight to the over-scheduled airport. And Biden would have had to veto the entire bill in order to stop addition of 10 flights to Reagan/National.
I'm just thinking in terms of frump thought process- the bill was introduced and passed under Biden. Both Biden and Buttigieg "let it pass" (frump thought process). I have since watched a video of experts (real experts, not frump experts) who ultimately feel all the air traffic could have been confusing. If quite literally it was pilot confusion, he will jump on the fact that Biden, and by extension Buttigieg, made a busy airport busier and honestly he wouldn't be all wrong in that assessment. Did 10 flights make that much of a difference? They will say it did. It's an out, it's at least a semi-solid argument for laying blame to which the public will latch onto.
Buttigieg opposed the flight expansion on the basis of safety.
I can’t with these people anymore. How the heck do DEI and Biden have anything to do with this tragedy. He spews lies continuously.
Duffy was confirmed by a vote of 77 to 22.
Democrats are doing a great job resisting Trump. /s
Looks like we are all going to be very busy this primary season.
I get the frustration. But it’s traditional to allow the president to pick his cabinet so long as there are not clear disqualifying factors, rather than to politicize every nominee. Duffy is inexperienced but served as a Congressman for many years, and that’s likely going to mean he gets through unless there is something in his background that would stop the nomination in its tracks. He would have probably been confirmed by all senators had the freeze not going into effect, eliciting protest votes from many senators.
You are correct about the tradition, but it is also traditional for the president not to be a felon. Democrats should not act as if things are normal, because they aren’t. No cooperation on anything, because that gives the Administration an undeserved aura of legitimacy.
Jay's awesome, probably my favorite political substacker, but I agree with you. Dems need to resist absolutely everything Trump does and be a complete, unequivocal blockade at all times, no matter how useless it is to be so. Traditional politics do not work with MAGA. I hope that era returns. But for now, it's gone. Vote no on everything. If MAGA tries to pass a resolution praising the pope, vote NO. Or even praising Obama, for that matter.
No! The job of dems is to vote NO on every nominee. Every single one. It's disgusting.
The problem that some Dems have with voting no even on fairly competent nominees is fear of what will be nominated next time. (I deliberately didn't say who.) We know that trump abused the use of "interim" fillers of positions needing Senate Approval, thereby removing ALL oversight. Because of the fractures in the GOP, it isn't clear that actual competence can get confirmed without Dem help.
But there is massive amounts of clearly disqualifying factors...
These dems have got to go - less than worthless. You can't compromise with incompetence...and criminality.