This is getting beyond embarrassing. Donald Trump faced the first bona fide crisis of his presidency, ten days into it, and he reacted like the idiot child that he is. We speak of the no survivors crash at Reagan National Airport Wednesday night which claimed 67 lives at present count. This incident comes mere days after two dubious actions on the part of Trump: one, was sending out a memo to government workers offering a buyout (including air traffic controllers) and the second was his specious claim that he would restore “excellent and safety” at the Federal Aviation Administration.
Trump is manifestly incompetent to occupy the office he holds and so is his fellow TV talking head, Sean Duffy, the titular Secretary of Transportation. So what is happening now? Find scapegoats, that is what is happening now. Trump never blamed himself for COVID, as you recall, and he’s sure as hell not blaming himself for this. He’s blaming Biden and Obama, Pete Buttigieg and most of all DEI. As you’ll see, Trump claims the three named politicians set him up by hiring people with disabilities, whereas the language in the FAA website was there during the entirety of Trump’s first term and he could have done something about it, if he objected to it, but did not.
The memorandum, titled “Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation,” came on Trump’s second day in office. It highlighted the FAA’s crucial role in overseeing “safety for more than 45,000 flights and 2.9 million airline passengers,” adding that Americans “trust the FAA’s public servants with their lives, and it is therefore imperative that they maintain a commitment to excellence and efficiency.”
“During the prior administration, however, the FAA betrayed its mission by elevating dangerous discrimination over excellence,” Trump’s order said.
An accompanying White House fact sheet said Trump had signed a presidential memorandum that “ends DEI madness and restores excellence and safety” in the FAA.
It added that the action “orders the Secretary of Transportation and FAA Administrator to immediately stop Biden DEI hiring programs and return to non-discriminatory, merit-based hiring,” and requires the administrator to “the past performance and performance standards of all FAA employees in critical safety positions and make clear that any individual who fails to demonstrate adequate capability is replaced by someone who will ensure Americans’ flight safety and efficiency.”
The fact sheet also said that, as part of a DEI initiative, the “Biden FAA” had recruited people with “‘severe intellectual’ disabilities, psychiatric issues, and complete paralysis.”
That’s Trump’s inaccurate (as usual) pitch. We won’t go into a discourse on how physically handicapped people can do well in a number of jobs. There are quadraplegics who have graduated from top universities because since their minds are all they can use, they use them to peak advantage. But that’s not the point. The point is that according to Snopes, the text referenced from the FAA website was real—but had been online since 2013, and had remained there throughout Trump’s first administration. This isn’t something Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden dreamt up one day, the program and the language has been there for some time. But Trump needs to blame somebody and right now Buttigieg is the logical choice.
During a press conference about the crash, Trump directly blamed Buttigieg for the crash despite having no evidence whatsoever to back up such a claim.
“Maybe this is the reason the FAA, which is overseen by secretary Pete Buttigieg, a real winner,” Trump said. “That’s the guy’s a real winner. Do you know how badly everything’s run since he’s run? The Department of Transportation? He’s a disaster. He was a disaster as a mayor, he ran his city into the ground, and he’s a disaster now. He’s just got a good line of b——. The Department of Transportation, his government agency charged with regulating civil aviation while he runs it, 45,000 people, and he’s run it right into the ground with his diversity, so I had to say that it’s terrible.”
Buttigieg came out swinging at Trump immediately after the president’s rant and pointed out that Trump in his first week in office pushed out several aviation safety officials.
“Despicable,” he wrote in response on X. “As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch. President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.”
Trump accusing anybody of “having a line of bullshit” is really something. This is an oh my God, I’m gonna faint moment. But it gets much worse. Let’s get on to Trump’s solution, the “naturally talented geniuses.” Don’t want to miss that.
This is the dogma for the next four years, write it down:
- Everything is Biden and or Obama’s fault;
- DEI is the new boogeyman;
- Immigrants are the other boogeyman;
- One out of the four will always, and reliably, be blamed (along with a supporting cast) for every single eff up that happens on Trump’s watch.
And of course the rest of the world is watching this and either laughing or shaking their heads because, of course, they have to do business with us. Until they don’t. America may be a very different place in four years, after this unspeakable asshole is done taking a wrecking ball to it.
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Lips or fingers moving? LIE! DEFLECTION! PROJECTION! MORONIC EVIL ON DISPLAY!!! FACT! We’ve the receipts asshole. It started long long ago but hit the national stage in 2015.
I saw part of his idiotic “press conference”.
“We think it was this” I call Bravo-Sierra. YOU think this because you’re too lazy and/or stupid to get the info from the source.
Dude can pick up the phone and get all the info, but he just stares slack-jawed at the teevee and repeats whatever CT crap he sees.
Let’s remember, Sphincter Face has never run a large organization. TrumpOrg is small and scary and people did what he said. He runs the Presidency the same way…small group of inside sycophants who do what he says. The Big Sphincter is thoroughly incapable of understanding the big picture, the scale, of his government on a management and org. chart and human resources basis.When he screams about FAA commitments to hire people with disabilities, he envisions a control tower full of blind, one-armed “dwarfs” who are popping anti-psychotic medications all shift! Don’t argue with me; that’s damned near a direct quote! Sphincter thinks the ONLY jobs at FAA are the ATCs! Undoubtedly, many disabilities can be accommodated for control tower jobs, but there are 40K other jobs at the FAA! Jobs for engineers, systems analysts, IT experts, metallurgists, investigators, file clerks, and janitors…every one of those can be accommodated!! A leader of a large organization would know that, which is why Sphincter Face doesn’t!! 🤬🤬
When the next accident occurs after he’s fired everyone, it will be interesting to see who he blames next. The only sure thing is it will NEVER be his fault.