I'm not really talking about last night's terrible accident in which an Army helicopter collided with a commercial airliner on final approach to DCA. (Although on a side note I was enraged by nearly every news outlet stating the airliner collided with the helicopter, implying the former was at fault. The airliner appears to have been on a correct approach so presumably had right of way, and at ~400 feet off the ground/Potomac, approaching the postage stamp that is DCA, no real options other than to proceed.) The DC airspace is incredibly complex given the combination of flight restrictions and civilian/military flight activity, and it is frankly surprising - and a tribute to pilots and traffic controllers - this had not previously happened. Were it not for Congress wanting a quick scarpering out of town the airport would have been closed and become a great location for the Air and Space Museum expansion, except they would have had to float the SR71 and Endeavour into the venue given runway length.
I am of course referring to convicted felon Donald Trump's press conference in which, to no one's shock, he blamed Emmanuel Goldstein DEI.
One of the dangerous elements of where we are and where we are heading is that from a certain angle, i.e. as someone outside the immediate list of targets of state power, to a certain extent this is incredibly boring and predictable. OF COURSE Trump is going to blame everyone but his world historically brilliant self. OF COURSE it's all DEI's fault. And so on. Any of us could have scripted out a reasonable transcript of the presser in advance, or fed a prompt into ChatGPT if your taste runs to exploiting others' intellectual property. Speaking as a cynic it is incredibly hard to avoid slipping into cynicism on this.
Our only hope is that NTSB can resist the penetration of its structure by Project 2025 types, at least long enough to determine what happened with all the evidence at its disposal.
Our only consolation is that this absolutely minimal observation of official duty - it may even have been preferable to have foregone it - probably messed with Trump's tee time and possibly Hegseth's G & T time.
3 comments:
If one of the pilots or an ATC is NOT a white guy, then you know that FOTUS will push HARD to hang it on that person. And to extrapolate from that to the "all 'minorities' are unqualified diversity hires!" Because any white guy who shoots up a neighborhood/school/festival is a "deeply troubled loner, nothing more to say amirite?" and anyone else who does something is a clear sign of the perfidy of those that are like them.
Oh, and RFK Jr.'s trying to fob off questions about his anti-vaxx stance by saying that he's always open to new data? He's lying. That's been his go-to defense for years. But the kicker is that HE gets to decide what data is useful, and NO DATA THAT SHOWS VACCINES ARE EFFECTIVE IS VALID. Presto!
The ethics fed (ret) in me just recoils from RFK Jr.'s abject horror when Sen. Warren suggested that he agree not to personally profit from lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies. COMPANIES THAT HE WOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR REGULATING. Careening to kleptocracy.
What's the FOTUS going to say if both of the pilots and the ATC are all ... white men? I'm sure he'll come up with something. And it does distract from the shitshow of RFK Jr.*, Tulsi, and Patel stumbling through their confirmation hearings and courts smacking his blatantly illegal "spending freeze."
*RFK Jr. saying about vaccines that he's "willing to be convinced if people
Distraction and overwhelming-by-volume is the name of their game. It seems we should go the simple route and condemn in general rather than in particular, lest we get overtaken.
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