The Buck Stops Where? 😢 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 😢  

✈️ 🚁:  On January 20, Mike Whitaker, the head of the Federal Aviation Authority resigned, forced out by co-president Elon Musk who was furious that Whitaker had imposed fines on Musk’s Space X company for endangering commercial air space and flights with exploding debris from its Space X rocket tests. Also, on January 20, Trump froze the hiring of federal employees including air traffic controllers, a group who also received those possibly illegal buyout offers that Trump’s team emailed out this week, despite a 2023 Inspector General report that concluded that due to budgeting decisions and government closure threats made by House Republicans, air traffic control facilities have been understaffed for years.  On January 22, Trump notified members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee that they were being eliminated and fired the heads of the Coast Guard and Transportation Security Administration. Yesterday, in the absence of an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (the “NTSB”), Trump whose Trump Air failed and who lost the crew and passengers on one of his helicopters when it crashed in 1989 but who fashions himself to be an expert in all things avionic took to the podium to blame Presidents Obama and Biden and DEI (diversity), specifically some combination of incompetent Black people, women, and “dwarves” hired by the last Transportation Secretary, that gay guy Pete Buttigieg, but made no mention of the budget pressures that led to the airport’s control tower being understaffed and may have contributed to the horrific midair collision between a military Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines plane which left sixty-seven people dead. How long before he renames the Black Hawks? President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that said: the buck stops here.  Trump might as well have one saying: “Not my fault, ever.”  We don’t know if understaffing and the recent firings caused Tuesday night’s crash and won’t know until the NTSB completes its investigation, but it’s fair to assume that Trump will make sure that the report exonerates him, his decisions, and his congressional abettors. By the way, recognizing the optics of not having one, on Thursday Trump appointed a new FAA Director, because maybe we need one?

Confirmation Hearings: Most of yesterday’s news focused on the air crash, but that didn’t stop the calamity of confirmation hearings from rolling on. DNI nominee Tulsi Gabbard, FBI Director nominee Kash Patel and HHS nominee RFK Jr all testified.  There were too many intentionally deceptive answers and outright lies to mention but a few stood out as particularly ridiculous and even criminal.  Patel who mostly denies much of what he’s been recorded saying about having an enemies list and wanted to turn the FBI’s DC office into a museum, also denied knowing Stew Peters, a right wing, conspiracist who’s had prominent neo-Nazis on his podcasts.  The problem is that Patel who speaks to Peters frequently,  appeared on eight of his podcasts, things that Peters confirmed on social media after the hearing.  That’s perjury for anyone who’s cares. Gabbard who is the most likely to get dinged if anyone of these awful candidates does get dinged, got twisted in knots obfuscating answers about her support for Edward Snowden, the controversial national secret leaker who now resides in Russia where he’s protected by Putin. Then there’s RFK Jr whose answers depend upon who’s asking.  He’s for vaccines except that he’s not, he’s pro-choice except when he’s adhering to Trump’s party line, he may or may not cancel the approval of mifepristone,  he doesn’t appear to know how Medicaid works and in my favorite answer of the day he told Maryland’s Senate newbie Angela Alsobrooks that because people like her, as in Black people, have more antigens they don’t need as many vaccines. RFK based that screwball conclusion on “reports from Poland.” The Poland he was referring to isn’t the country, but a Mayo clinic research doctor who has repeatedly requested that RFK keep his name out of his mouth while pointing out that RFK continues to misrepresent his work because neither he nor his co-authors have concluded or believe that Black people should be getting fewer or lower dose vaccines than everyone else.  Then again, science isn’t one of RFK’s strong points, maybe because he’s not a scientist but also maybe because of the brain worm and years of heroin addiction which earlier in the week he said was easier to kick than all those anti-depressants he opposes. The sad thing is that both RFK and Patel will likely be confirmed, and it’s too early to rule out Gabbard because Trump threats are effective.  By the way it isn’t just Elon who’s threatening to fund primary challenges against vulnerable Senators who oppose Trump’s candidates, RFK’s former running mate Nicole Shanahan is doing the same, targeting Georgia’s Raphael Warnock in particular who she said she funded during his last election.  Warnock isn’t up for reelection until 2028 so her threat, while notable, is probably worthless.     

Crazy, Stupid and Scary:  For now, Trump has rescinded his “defund everything” order but because his Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt foolishly said that the order “rescission” memo he issued wasn’t meant to indicate a change in his policy but instead was intended to convince the courts to drop the cases filed against the defundings, one of the Judge’s involved said that he’s keeping the case alive.  Remember how many press secretaries Trump blew through last time? A few more statements like that and Leavitt may soon find herself hiding in the bushes with Sean Spicer or maybe on Dancing With Stars. The Trump team’s ultimate objective is to have the constitutionality of the Impoundment Control Act that was passed by Congress in 1974 in response to some of President Nixon’s misdeeds taken up by the Supreme Court. The Act says that presidents cannot temporarily or permanently withhold Congressionally passed funding, which is what Trump and Rusell Vought the Project 2025 author who is likely to be confirmed to be his OMB (budget) director are trying to do.  Trump’s hope is that since the currently constituted Supreme Court thinks he’s a king they’ll also opine that any law that prohibits him from acting like one should be ruled unconstitutional. Switching back to the FBI, the Wall Street Journal reports that its current interim leadership was kind of appointed by accident, something to do with an erroneous posting on the White House website about who has which position.  Rather than correct the posting, the White House decided to go with the posting mistake flipping the assignments.  Oopsie.

Fog:  Yesterday, Hamas together with their co-terrorists Islamic Jihad released Israeli hostages Agam Berger, 20, Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Gadi Moses, 80 as well as five Thai nationals: Thenna Pongsak, Sathian Suwannakham, Sriaoun Watchara, Seathao Bannawat and Rumnao Surasak. The release of Arbel Yehoud and Gadi Moses was particularly frightening to watch. They were both passed through a chaotic and crushing crowd of gun toting, threatening militants before making their way into the Red Cross cars, that’s the Red Cross which failed to visit any of the hostages during their captivity and who is really only acting in the capacity of Uber drivers for the releases. Once in their “Ubers” the hostages were further subjected to danger as the militants slowed their departure to a crawl while also jumping on the car roofs. In response to the horror show, Israel delayed releasing the 110 militants they had promised to release in exchange but did release them by the end of the day. Hamas announced that tomorrow’s scheduled hostage release will including Yarden Bibas, Ofer Kalderon, and American-Israeli national Keith Siegel.  There is still no official news about Bibas’ wife or two young red-haired children.  Hamas reported earlier that they were dead, but they’ve lied about the status of some of the other hostages so at least for now, the status of the rest of the Bibas family remains unknown.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow