Guess where the federal air marshals are being deployed. (The bolding is mine.)
Roughly 200 Federal Air Marshals have reportedly been reassigned from their usual duties protecting the U.S. transit system to assist with Trump administration deportation flights alongside Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Marshals, the main law enforcement arm of the Transportation Security Administration, better known for missions like protecting U.S. commercial flights, are instead carrying out tasks on deportation flights like providing security, handing out sandwiches to detainees, checking them for lice, and cleaning plans, CNN reports.
The reported deployment has proved controversial within the Marshals community, with the Air Marshals union praising the mission, while a lobbying group for Air Marshals argues it distracts from the agents’ core function and sees the Marshals acting as glorified security guards for government contractors that manage some flights.
The group, the Air Marshal National Council, has filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security inspector general’s office, and has warned the new mission could “undermine aviation and national security and expose federal officers to unsafe and improper working conditions.”
And the assertion from “government documents” cannot possibly be true.
The ICE deployment has “has not impacted Federal Air Marshals’ deployment on domestic and international flights to assess, address, and mitigate varying potential risks and threats to transportation and travelers,” according to government documents obtained by CNN.
We’re talking HUNDREDS of air marshals here. Reassigning them to hand out sandwiches for rendition deportation flights automatically removes protection from other flights.
Army Reserve Aviation Units’ Soldiers Screwed Seven Ways from Sunday. (The bolding is mine.)
Thousands of Army Reserve soldiers are being forced to scramble for new assignments after the service abruptly ordered the dismantling of its helicopter units, a sweeping move that has caught commanders off guard and upended aviation operations across the country.
The cuts, which are set to eliminate all of the reserve’s helicopter units by the end of the summer, are part of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George’s broader push to modernize the force by shedding legacy formations and redirecting resources toward emerging technologies such as drones and artificial intelligence.
But the transition has left troops questioning both the pace and planning of the changes. Military.com spoke with 16 Army Reserve aviators, including commanders and senior noncommissioned officers, who expressed frustration with what they described as a chaotic and poorly communicated rollout. All requested anonymity, citing concerns about retaliation, as they were not authorized to speak publicly.
“There was no heads-up, no briefing,” said one senior noncommissioned officer. “Just an email saying aviation’s going away and we need to find somewhere else to go.”
There are very many things involved with a unit standing down, and that’s especially true for reserve components. A blithe “find something else to do with the Reserves” is absolute nonsense. First off, a reserve component is just that: reserve. Those soldiers have their civilian lives, too. And what if the “something else to do with the Reserves” is in a very far somewhere else? Let’s not forget the civilian workers involved, either. They’re basically screwed outright. The military folks, if extremely lucky will get to find some unit with empty billets in their primary military occupational specialty (PMOS) or, if they’ve already earned a secondary MOS (SMOS), an empty billet for that SMOS. If they can’t find a unit that needs them in their PMOS and they haven’t already reeived an SMOS, then their only hope is to find a unit in such need of someone that the unit can afford to spend the minimum six months training them into their new job. And what about those who received bonuses for enlistment or reenlistment? Transerring out of the MOS attached to that bonus requires repaying the bonus.
But, hey, the felon loves the military, right?
And here’s why there’s no need to do drugs. Reality is basically hallucination at this point.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Thursday that President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for his commitment to “restructuring” global trade rates.
“I’m thinking that since he’s basically taught the world trade economics, he might be up for the Nobel on economics because this is a fundamental restructuring of the international trade environment in a way where the biggest market in the world has said, you’re not going to cheat us anymore,” Navarro said during an appearance on Fox Business Network.
“We’re going to have fair deals. And everything he’s doing has defied the critics. The tariffs have been tax cuts rather than inflation,” he added.
Navarro said the White House’s trade negotiations are “working beautifully” to weed out other trading partners’ unfair advantages.
So far, the Trump administration has secured deals with the United Kingdom, European Union and Japan while awaiting a more permanent agreement with China, the world’s second-largest economy.
“These deals are happening now fast and certainly look incredibly effective,” Navarro said, lauding Trump’s leadership.
A sober thinking person does not come up with that. And if they do, they certainly don’t say it out loud.