Somehow, I only read the term DEI a week or so ago yet also out of the mouths of the GOP. Democrats? Diversity? Dunno if’s pronounced similar to the Latin “Deo” or as “Day-ee” yet goddamit, they used to call these “dog-whistles”
Okay, from BBC
Trump and his fellow Republicans have regularly attacked “diversity, equity and inclusion” programmes in the federal government.
Trump (again from BBC)
Trump said the hiring guidance for the FAA’s diversity and inclusion programme included preference for those with disabilities involving “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism”.
I’m agasp. This fucker is president? And DEI is a term for “bad, liberal, and everything not MAGA about the USA?” The Constitution (latter amendments I’m not in the mood to look up or quote) has some language in there about the temporary removal of a fucking lunatic President, yet the VP has to initiate that and Congress has to approve it. Neither is going to happen. Fuck the USA is screwed far worse than I thought.
I’m sure that the list ("hearing, vision, . . . ") came from somewhere, likely from several places. I’m also sure that the main ADA regulations require “reasonable accommodation” for applicants who are qualified to do the job if they just have the accommodation. Things like providing elevators so that applicants using wheelchairs can be hired. If they’re trying to claim that anyone is being forced to hire people with “severe intellectual disability” as air traffic controllers, they’re just lying.
Heck, people with active epilepsy aren’t allowed to drive cars. And why would being a dwarf keep anyone from being an air traffic controller?
I’ve only flown into Dulles, which I’ve heard rumours will be renamed “Trump International” (bless us everyone), not Ronald Reagan Airport,yet like Trump, one would have to be blind, stupid and non-MAGA to go through DC and not see how crowded that airspace is.
I don’t know the politics or voting record of the Blackhawk pilot, yet I am positive he had no DEI/non-MAGA inclinations. Maybe too early to say, yet it seems he fucked up. Now why there was (at least one Blackhawk - thought they fly in threes) doing whatever in a highly crowded airspace (at night) needs to be answered by the moron SecDef. It will not be. Some schmo in the gutted TSA will say it was a mistake and why are all of you reporters being so insensitive to those who perished?
Apologies if it’s been answered. “You are required to fly through crowded civilian airspace at night”. I’ll scroll back as there are quite a few pilots here aware of what might be “required”. Acknowledging then not heeding ATC directions in the DC area is not what one wants to do.
It’s been noted, several times in the Breaking News thread on the crash, that, yes, military helicopters regularly and frequently fly through that airspace, including at night.
I live not far from a joint Army/Air Force base. It’s not unusual to hear or see Blackhawks overhead at any time of day or night. Sometimes at my work they fly so close and low that I swear special forces are about to bust through our skylights and rappel onto the grocery floor.
Reagan Airport is somewhat similar to Laguardia in NYC (high domestic traffic) - very crowded (JFK nearby) and bodies of water about yet it (Ronny Reagan) should have been made a military base many years ago even before renaming it.
I’ve lived in Queens, NY where both (LGA and JFK) airports are and can be busy & noisy. Yet the notion of regular military flights to include low-flying Blackhawks, would not “fly” (sorry if that’s a pun).
The moron SecDef needs to say something cohesive about this. Trump can rail all he wants about DEI yet is there nobody to tell him “this is not the time” and STFU about DEI? Even if it was just blaming it on the ATC he was way out of line.
ETA: Seriously, don’t you remember that “Cabinet meeting” early in his first presidency when everyone sitting at the table took their turn at praising Dear Leader?
Trump likes praise, so long as it’s not too long for his big brain to go “la la la”. Didn’t he do the same in 2007? Though he had something of a reasonable cabinet back then.
Regarding this plane near-miss I want to hear from the SecDef who might be reading about helicopers (first invented by Russians!) and what a Blackhawk is. I’d be content if he was just watching “Apocalypse Now” and seeing how helicopters can do great things. His takeaway will be “Charlie don’t surf”
Trump is an open racist and misogynist. Remember that he first came to national attention when he was sued by the feds for refusing to rent condos in his NYC buildings to black applicants. He has never, but never changed. The Central Park Five, Birtherism… he’s a garden-variety racist. A very powerful one, but still just a shitty, vile white-makes-right old man.
Keeping the above in mind, when Trump says “DEI hire” what he really wants to say is “some fucking n****r was hired to work somewhere that wasn’t a cotton field and that’s why all these problems exist. If a straight white man was doing [whatever], everything would be absolutely perfect!” But since he can’t publicly and openly use the n-word, he uses a dogwhistle – a very obvious dogwhistle, to be sure, but one that give his cock holsters at Fox just enough deniability that they can adopt the same language.
He uses similar language to describe latinos (too many to list), native americans (“pocahontas” or saying that casinos on native American land shouldn’t get tax breaks because the owners “don’t look like Indians”), Japanese (“Japs,” no surprise there) has made comments about only wanting Jews managing his finances, and of course women (again, too many to list but threatening to have Rosie O’Donnell’s wife raped is one particularly appalling example that sticks in my mind).
He’s a filthy racist dirtbag, and this DEI shit is just his fig leaf for (trying to) hide it.
Not quite. Igor Sikorsky was, in fact, born in Russia; but he immigrated to the U.S. in 1919 and his R-4 (the first large-scale, mass-produced helicopter) was manufactured starting in 1942.
I certainly do not doubt you. I’m asking this because I hope you’ll know where to find the links to it quicker than I can find them by searching. Can you point me in the correct direction to his gibberings about the Native American-owned casinos and his use of the slur for Japanese? TIA.
That’s Xitterfication to you. Take a wild guess how the X is pronounced.
Thanis, Smapti. I meant the phrase as that bit of levity/reality that Carlin meant. I was just going to bed when this came on the BBC so it was a mix of what they were saying and Trumps “Why didn’t the helicopter go down?” and unless there was a malfunction, it seems that he told the ATC the American Eagle was spotted (perhaps he meant different plane) yet the President’s comments already were out of line. I did see the conference by some seemingly competent organisation and my takeaway was the BBC crawl that said “The Kremiln sends condolences” which I only found out later was they had skaters on board.
DEI is clearly what used to be known as a “dog-whistle”. He said nothing racist, derogatory, anti-handicapped and only in their job because of the Democrats (nothing about “All Men equal” which constantly gets in the way of the GOP politics). Yet he said it, and you do not need to have your white hoods over your head to acknowledge how right he is.
I don’t know if women are allowed to train in Blackhawks, yet I am glad this was not a woman pilot as therefore case closed. Bill Clinton must be locked up.
Think the SecDef would know this? I’d like to think Cheney would.
I did a quick wiki of Sikorsky to make certain the Soviers/Russians would consider him Russian even if he was born in Kiev (they very much do).
Wernher von Braun was German and served Germany in WWII fairly well with the V1 rockets yet a bit of improvement on the V2’s and any possibly V3’s would be trouble for the UK.
Happily, after the war he came to the USA and there is no Saturn V rocket to go to the Moon without him. At least not in JFK’s rather lofty time frame.
And if we’re on aviation//rocketry/Nazi V2’s/Apollo/JFK all in one BBQ thread, I will say that to rename Dulles International Airport (IAD) for Trump would be a travesty. It’s going to happen, unfortunately.
Senator Tammy Duckworth was a helicopter pilot with the Army Reserve and Army National Guard, and flew Blackhawks. She served in Iraq, and was at the controls of a Blackhawk when it was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade in 2004.
A real president would have gone immediately to the scene of Wednesay night’s collision. What we have in the United States, instead of a real president, is someone who says this (the link goes to the Independent):
This indicates Mary Jo Carr was the first female Blackhawk pilot. (The link goes to Woman’s Collection.) And I see @kenobi_65 beat me to an answer. I’m still leaving this in because it’s a cool link and it shows how long females have been serving in that role.
"You want me to go swimming?”
Yes, right in the frigid Potomac. I’d buy popcorn and a giant pop to see that “big tough guy” babble through one of his idiot stream of consciousness word salads while treading water in a 35 degree river. That would be entertainment.
