Current and former air traffic controllers warn that the Federal Aviation Administration’s hiring practices and “immunity program” have led to problems, such as those that may have resulted in the recent midair collison near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

The FAA’s focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) hiring practices has resulted in the employment of less qualified air traffic controllers (ATCs) and a staffing shortage, former ATC's say. This, in addition to an “immunity program” that fails to hold ATCs accountable for their mistakes, are likely contributing factors American Airlines plane collided with a military helicopter on Jan. 29 that resulted in both aircraft plunging into the Potomac River near the Washington, D.C.-area airport. All 67 people aboard died.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are investigating the incident.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Thursday that the helicopter’s advanced tracking system was turned off at the time of the crash. As for the FAA, an ATC tried unsuccessfully to contact the helicopter less than 30 seconds before the collision, according to audio from air traffic control.
Warned about dangers

The FAA was warned in a 2023 report that air traffic controllers were increasingly making last minute flight adjustments to deal with traffic and shortages of controllers in a trend that raised safety concerns. The safety expert report that warned America’s air traffic control system is suffering from quality-control issues and staffing shortages that put safety at risk.

The November 2023 report also warned that personnel shortages among air traffic controllers were forcing people to work longer hours and make sudden, last-minute changes to flight plans that increased risks.


https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/air-traffic-controllers-warn-faa-hiring-practices-immunity-program-led

At the Superbowl, Donald Trump was cheered on by the attendees, while Taylor Swift was booed.
You may recognize Donald J. Trump as "The President of the United States of America", while Taylor Swift may be recognizable as "that one famous pop star who dates that football guy and didn't support trump in 2024"
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/taylor-swift-booed-eagles-super-bowl-trump-b2695121.html
Taylor Swift booed by Eagles fans at Super Bowl – while Trump is cheered

Taylor Swift received a negative welcome from Philadelphia Eagles fans throughout this year’s Super Bowl.

The Grammy winner attended this year’s game to show her support for her boyfriend Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce on Sunday in New Orleans at the Caesars Superdome. However, the Eagles fans were quick to show support for their team as they began to boo her.

After the “Karma” singer was shown on the jumbotron, the crowd erupted in boos which she appeared to be unbothered by. Swift quickly reacted as she looked over at the people she invited into her suite — Ice Spice and the Haim sisters, Este, Danielle, and Alana — before giving the camera a side eye.

However, Serena Williams ended up defending the singer on social media as she told her to disregard the negative crowd energy.

“I love you @taylorswift 13 don't listen to those boos!!!” she wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

While Swift was getting a negative reaction from the crowd, the opposite happened when Donald Trump also appeared on the jumbotron, with the crowd breaking into cheers.

Trump is the first sitting president to ever attend a Super Bowl in person which has largely resulted in a positive reaction from the players.

The president went on to post on his Truth Social platform about the crowd booing Swift as he shared a post from an account called “Libs of TikTok” which read “Trump gets massive cheers at the Super Bowl while Taylor Swift gets booed.”

“The world is healing!”

https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/trump-says-us-might-have-less-debt-than-thought-2025-02-09/
U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday said his administration was examining U.S. Treasury debt payments for possible fraud and suggested that the country's $36 trillion debt load might not be that high.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said administration officials who have been combing through payment records in an effort to identify wasteful spending have turned their attention to the debt payments that play a central role in the global financial system.

"We're even looking at Treasuries," Trump said. "There could be a problem - you've been reading about that, with Treasuries and that could be an interesting problem."
He added: "It could be that a lot of those things don't count. In other words, that some of that stuff that we're finding is very fraudulent, therefore maybe we have less debt than we thought."

It was not clear whether Trump was referring to debt service or other government payments made by the Treasury Department.

The United States currently has $36.2 trillion public debt outstanding, according to the U.S. Treasury, equal to more than 120% of GDP. Because the U.S. government spends more money than it collects, Trump and his fellow Republicans who control Congress will have to authorize more borrowing sometime this year to avert a debt default that could have catastrophic consequences.

Trump's proposed tax cuts would add trillions of dollars more in debt, independent budget watchdogs say.
Trump has tasked Elon Musk with an ambitious overhaul of the federal government, sparking street protests in Washington and accusations that the Trump administration is breaking the law.

Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency" has disrupted operations at several federal agencies and has raised privacy and security concerns while accessing sensitive payroll and spending records.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/04/trump-says-us-will-own-and-develop-gaza-strip.html

Who's had their security clearances revoked this week?
Joe Biden? Check.
Biden's Secretary of State Antony Blinken? Check.
New York Attorney General Letitia James? Check. (Note: she also lost her membership cards to The Waffle House and Golden Corral)
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg? Check.
former national security adviser Jake Sulivan? Check.
Biden's deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco? Check.
Lawyers Andrew Weismann? Mark Zaid? Norm Eisen? Triple check.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-revokes-security-clearance-letitia-james-alvin-bragg-2028357
Donald Trump said in an exclusive interview with the New York Post on Saturday that he revoked the security clearance for some former Democratic officials and current legal authorities, following his decision to do the same for former President Joe Biden earlier this week.

Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment by email on Saturday afternoon.

Why It Matters
Trump announced on Friday that he had revoked Biden's security clearance and discontinuing the daily intelligence briefings that Biden had been receiving—retaliation for Biden doing the same to Trump in 2021 due to "erratic behavior" and the concern he would disclose sensitive information.

Traditionally, former presidents continue to receive intelligence briefings even after leaving office. However, in a post on Friday, Trump claimed that Biden used his tenure to instruct the intelligence community to prevent Trump from accessing national security information after he left office.

Trump on Saturday told the New York Post in an exclusive interview that he would revoke the clearance of eight additional Democrats, which the newspaper wrote was meant to "punish" them. Without their clearance, the officials will not be allowed to access classified information or enter federal facilities.

Each of those listed were at some point involved with investigations into Trump.

Unfortunately, retarded MAGA shills will lap this up, because they love being lied to.

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/02/07/congress/mike-johnson-shutdown-threat-00203080

Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Friday morning that Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries “seemed to be trying to set up some sort of a government shutdown.”

“We have been negotiating in good faith, trying to get a top-line number. But so far as I know, they’ve been unresponsive the past two days or so,” Johnson said.

The speaker weighed in as anxieties are spiking about the coming March 14 deadline for extending government funding. Democrats have grown wary about cutting a deal with Republicans as President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk move swiftly to unilaterally cut agency funding

Top appropriators have been negotiating in recent weeks about a top-line spending number — a necessary first step toward passing funding for the remainder of fiscal 2025. The chair of the House Appropriations Committee, in fact, said Friday — contra Johnson — that those talks are ongoing.

“That’s not true, he doesn’t know that," Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said when asked about Johnson's comment. "I mean, we heard [from Democrats] yesterday."

The top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (R-Conn.), said much the same Friday: "The speaker is mistaken. No one has walked away from the table. We sent them an offer yesterday. He should give Chairman Cole a call for a status update."

According to a person familiar with the private talks who was granted anonymity to describe them, Republicans have put multiple topline offers on the table but the House and Senate GOP numbers are still not aligned.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/28/economy/trump-inflation-price-promises/index.html

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-cdc-orders-pullback-new-scientific-papers-involving-its-researchers-source-2025-02-02/
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is seeking to withdraw all papers involving its researchers that are being considered for publication by external scientific journals to allow for a review by the Trump administration, a federal official told Reuters.

The sweeping order came in an email from the CDC's chief science officer on Friday addressed to all division heads at the agency, the official, who has seen the email, told Reuters. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The review is aimed at removing language to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order saying the federal government will only recognize two sexes, male and female. Officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment.

The withdrawal order, first reported by the Inside Medicine Substack, goes beyond an initial directive on Jan. 21 that federal health agencies pause their own public communications to allow for a review of those materials by Trump appointees.

Inside Medicine published a list of specific words targeted for removal in the communications review, including gender, transgender, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) and nonbinary. The federal official said that such a list went out from CDC to its divisions.

The Friday withdrawal order involves all manuscripts written or co-written by CDC scientists. If CDC scientists are co-authors on a paper that originated outside of the agency, they are asked to take their names off the paper, the official said.

Public health experts said the removal of such terms threatens their ability to address all kinds of medical needs as they affect different groups, including those with HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.

President Trump signs an executive order freezing aid to South Africa in response to the racist controversial land seizure law and the persecution of ethnic White minority as well as opening the USA to resettlement of South African Whites who are having their land stolen and being discriminated against.

Trump is the real deal.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-signs-executive-order-aimed-south-africa-white-house-official-says-2025-02-07/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/05/rfk-jr-hearing-black-people-immune-systems
During Robert F Kennedy Jr’s Senate confirmation hearing on 30 January, Angela Alsobrooks, a Democratic senator from Maryland, pressed the nominee on his past claims that Black people have a stronger immune system than white people and thereby, should receive vaccines on a different schedule than them. “What different vaccine schedule would you say I should have received?” Alsobrooks, who is Black, asked the health secretary nominee. Kennedy then referenced a “series of studies” showing that “to particular antigens, Blacks have a much stronger reaction”.

The exchange is cause for alarm for many, as it signified how close a man who holds medically racist beliefs was to becoming the country’s leading health official. Dr Richard Kennedy – an author of the study referenced at the hearing, who is not related to Kennedy – told NPR that while it’s true the immune response to vaccination can vary by race, sex and “potentially dozens of other factors”, the data does not support a change in vaccine schedule based on race.

Alsobrooks went on to characterize the nominee’s incorrect interpretation of medical research as “dangerous”, noting the potential for the misinformation to have far-reaching and tangible effects on people’s lives. Shannon Cavanagh, the department chair of sociology at University of Texas, Austin, agreed with this sentiment, telling the Guardian that ideas like Kennedy’s could be used to rationalize the lack of care for an under-served population. She noted that even though false claims that Black people possess a stronger immune system or higher pain tolerance persist, the demographic actually suffers from higher maternal mortality rates and lower life expectancy than other groups.