- cross-posted to:
- politics
- cross-posted to:
- politics
Summary
The Trump administration emailed air traffic controllers urging them to quit and accept buyouts 24 hours after a fatal Reagan plane crash.
At 8:30 p.m. Thursday, the email urged federal employees to pursue private-sector jobs, offering pay incentives and vacation benefits while on government payroll.
This program contradicts established rules by allowing second employment, sparking union concerns about losing experienced personnel amid an air traffic controller shortage.
Trump blamed previous administrations for safety issues and misrepresented FAA standards, intensifying culture wars as officials remain uncertain about the buyout program’s future.
What do the think is going to happen? Privatize air traffic control? Or just rank the economy so bad they buy everything up?
Well the cynic in me says “to undermine the public trust in the safety of air travel so people become more isolated, unwilling to organize, and dependent on either corporate-controlled media or gasoline-powered cars to maintain contact with any part of the world outside a 20-mile radius,” and the nutjob conspiracy theorist in me sure thinks he could make a convincing corkboard out of it if you gave him enough thumb tacks and red string, but once again I could be making the mistake of assuming they’re going into this with a plan and not just flailing wildly to make it look like they’re addressing a problem they have no idea how to solve.
Yeah, rumor goes this started because the FAA had issues with Starship blowing up and raining debris, and Musk deciding to teach them a lesson.
It’s more that SpaceX has consistently lied on the forms that it gave the FAA, EPA, etc and have been cited multiple times. (See the saga about the blast deflection plate and the deluge water being industrial runoff they were letting drain into the nearby protected wetlands)
The starship exploding thing was a proverbial slap on the wrist and Elon still threw a fit.
The thing is that the Starship issue really isn’t that big a deal. There is always an FAA investigation after every spacecraft or aircraft flight anomaly.
It’s not the first time and definitely won’t be the last that a craft will fail to get to orbit, especially experimental ones like Starship units current iterative form.
The bigger question with the Starship anomaly is whether the active flight routes in that area during the launch window were normal or unexpected. Closer to the launch site there are large restricted areas, and launches are negotiated ahead of time and paths well known. Planes aren’t normally under the direct flight path for that exact reason.
In Hungary, Fidesz just either forces the media to not report on protests until they can get a picture where they can pretend only a few people attended, or they send the “football fans” (skinheads) in.
That has already been suggested by his minions. Let the airlines manage everything. Including baggage and body checking.
Oh god, the very idea…
Even if that’s your goal getting ATCs to simply quit all at once isn’t the way to go about it lol. I hope it works. It’ll ground all flights and cripple the country and bring this stupidity to it’s conclusion quickly.
The fallout has long lasting effects. When Reagan fired the ATC people who went on strike, it took a long, long time to rehire and train people who could do it. It’s a stressful job, and many people who looked like they were handling it well suddenly broke down and had to quit. In some ways, the industry never recovered from that.
They literally want to privatize every government function they possibly can. They’re saying it out loud, and have been for some time, and with control of all three branches of the federal government there’s absolutely nobody to stand in their way. So buckle up because things are about to get very bumpy.
Close all the exits.
That is one angle. Hmm.
He could totally intend to privatise ATC. They’re already halfway done with privatising education, and there’s no need to even mention healthcare.
US can into theocratic Stone Age.
They absolutely want to privatize it.
And there will be many more plane crashes when they do.
Just get ChatGPT do it or something