politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:

- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
The training and requirements to be an ATC are insane, in a extremely thorough way. I highly doubt the Republican administration would be able to find competent replacements among their 'patriots'.
That said, I doubt further that they would actually care and not just tell people to eat cake, or just privatize the ATC network to some billionaire.
Knowing Trump, he thinks the job is just standing there waving your arms at random
They can pull up some people from the military who run ATC on bases. Those bases don't have anywhere near the traffic levels that large commercial hubs do, but they might be able to move people around and fill in capacity at smaller airports.
That said, the shutdown is only accelerating issues that have been there since Reagan fired the striking ATC workers. Trump can bloviate about "TRUE PATRIOTS" all he wants. Patriotism can't direct a plane to the right runway. There's a certain level of reality that gets in the way. Ending the shutdown won't change the long term trends. Doing the same plan a second time would only end in disaster. It barely worked the first time; it's what put us on this long term downwards cycle on the whole ATC system.
Combat controllers. They served after the Haitian earthquake, directing some 200 flights per day into Port-au-Prince. But they are specialized to work in austere environments. https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/117884/combat-controllers-crucial-to-haiti-earthquake-relief/
ATL does over 500 per hour at peak times, and averages 200/hr.
200 flights per day are what Chicago Midway does. Chicago O'Hare does 10 times that much.
Combat controllers can only go so far.
Didn’t Musk try to steal the FAA code for one of his toilet companies to “rewrite”? I thought that was a headline from the past year.
Competent is the word here ... I have the feeling his current administration replaced 70% of competent people with folks totally unfit for the job.
Examples are FBI's Patel, or "Mr Health" Kennedy, and the expired Newshost leading the War department...
So I can easily see the experienced air controllers be replaced by some interns sifted out from some other departments, slap a week of training on them and airports are good to go.
If they privatize it then it's even easier to strike as they will no longer be held to government standards.
These people aren't getting paid, he wants them to do slave labor. It costs money to go to work and it's a stressful job anyway.
He has people who change his diapers.
NO KINGS
When has competency ever mattered with trump
Hear me out? Wouldn't it be so much more effective to get rid of all those DEI hires and replace every ATC tower with a broccoli headed kid who will refer to every plane as a "buttfor"?
What's a bu. . . wait a minute!