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.

  • ultranaut@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Given the persistent and extreme understaffing of air traffic controllers it wouldn’t take that many quitting at the same time to have a massive impact.

  • .Donuts@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    How does it go again? “In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity”

    The fact that they are using these tragic events as a means to dismantle the government even more quickly is horrifying to watch from the other end of the pond.

  • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Ah yes, just what we need right now… FEWER controllers in an industry that’s already short-staffed, and with two very recent fatal plane crashes. Perfect fucking idea.

  • cabron_offsets@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    You know what, fuck it. I hope they quit. Let’s accelerate this whole bullshit to its conclusion as fast as possible. Seems to me the only way through this fascist hellscape is by pissing off enough people to provoke a popular response.

    • Bloodyhog@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      A lot of people had this attitude in Russia. Let the evil guys run the country to the ground, and then rebuild into a better structure. This will happen, I think, the only problem is that can take decades and millions of people dead in the process. No suggestions here, just a note…

      • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I think you underestimate just exactly how popular Putin is with the Russian people, or I should say was originally. I don’t think he’s as popular now because of the “police action” in Ukraine and the number of Russians who have died to it and the economic hit the country has taken as a result of it. But he was insanely popular with the Russian populace through most of the 2010s.

        • FanciestPants@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Didn’t he win his last election with something like 94% of the vote. The dude is outrageously popular… or there might be something else going on.

          • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            A little of both since he is extremely popular in his country and he has also either jailed his opposition or they have gone missing or died mysteriously.

        • Bloodyhog@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Your point does not contradict mine, unfortunately. He was and is popular. Maybe a little less so now, but he would win fair elections now, I think. The line many people in Russia take is “he is the only one who could take us out of this mess. Without him the country will collapse”. And there are, of course, a lot who wholeheartedly support his imperial ambitions, just like there are plenty of magas in the US.

    • Nalivai@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Accelerationism is the stupidest idea ever. Shit being fucked is the natural state of things, and if you just let it slide, it will gradually come to it and stay there forever.

    • Rooty@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Accelerationism is helping the enemy. You should be doing the exact opposite - resisting, rallying and counterattacking.

  • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    In an apparent attempt to ignite the culture wars and further discredit the FAA, Trump falsely claimed that the agency’s website lists individuals with “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism” as “qualified” applicants for the air controller position, CBS News reported.

    Wait. Wait…

    and dwarfism

    Okay. Everything in his claim is wholesale made up, but what could possibly be wrong with an air traffic controller having dwarfism? There is nothing inherent about that condition that should preclude a person from being able to do this job. Many ATC coordinate flights traveling through Class A airspace, which is way up in the stratosphere, using computers. They might need a higher seat or something to reach the controls, but that’s it.

    Trump genuinely thinks air traffic controllers just stare out windows all day, doesn’t he? And because he says this, now ignorant people will be imagining that their plane is coordinated by a little person in a tower, standing on their tippy toes.

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Trump genuinely thinks air traffic controllers just stare out windows all day, doesn’t he? And because he says this, now ignorant people will be imagining that their plane is coordinated by a little person in a tower, standing on their tippy toes.

      Given that Airports were key to our victory over the British literally a century before Airplanes were invented… Probably