There is no new reliable information about the ground stop that was ordered yesterday, the operative word being “reliable.” Sean Duffy, the former MTV reality star, and Markwayne Mullin, the former Oklahoma plumber, told us exactly nothing during their lie-packed press conference last night. Why Markwayne was even at the podium was never explained. At least the Department of Transportation, headed up by Duffy, oversees the FAA, which runs the nation’s air traffic control system that fell apart. He sounded like he had been injected with talking points serum, he mentioned the $50 billion he said he needs so often and so robotically.

Neither of the two Trump-bots mentioned the $12.5 billion that was appropriated for the FAA as part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” in 2025. It emerged today that of that amount, only about one billion has been spent, and much of that amount, some $875 million, has been assigned to a Boston area startup company called Air Space Intelligence to pay for a new AI-powered “tool” called SMART that is supposed to “reduce delays, reduce fuel consumption and improve the travel experience for the flying public,” according to an FAA “fact sheet” that was published on Tuesday. “After a successful initial rollout to the National Capital Region in September, the FAA will now use SMART in the airspace of all 22 centers across the country,” the FAA continued, bragging about its new AI tool two days before the entire country’s air traffic control system failed, causing the ground stop ordered by the FAA yesterday at 4:00 p.m.

So where is the rest of the $12.5 billion? That money is supposed to be spent as part of what is supposed to be the FAA’s “modernization program.” Will the $12.5 billion be included in the $50 billion Sean Duffy kept demanding last night, or is it on top of that number? And why was the administration as recently as Monday claiming that it needed only $30 billion to complete the “modernization program” of the air traffic control system?

No answers. Zero.

What sort of failure is to blame for the shutdown yesterday that has stranded at least one million passengers today, according to reports this morning?

No answers. Zero.

Could a cyber attack have been to blame?

As of this morning, they still haven’t ruled that out.

Sean and Markwayne made sure to tell everyone that “no one was in danger” because of the shutdown in the FAA’s air traffic control system yesterday. Markwayne went on to tell the press that the fact no one died because of the system failure was “a miracle.” So, if the whole thing wasn’t that big a deal, why was the survival of everyone who was on the flights in the air at the time of the ground stop a “miracle?”

That question was asked. No answer. Zero.

Another reporter pointed out the uncomfortable fact that Trump has been president for almost two years and Republicans have had the majority in both the House and the Senate, so why didn’t Trump and the Republicans do something? If the FAA has been facing such an emergency, whey didn’t the people in charge, the Republicans, treat it like one?

No answer. Zero.

According to CBS News, Sean Duffy this morning had found at least part of a problem that may have contributed to the shutdown. An FAA contractor known as L3Harris was installing an update to the air traffic control system at a “remote location.” When a new router was installed, and “old copper wires” were replaced by fiberoptic cables, the system was “overloaded” and new log-on attempts “flooded the system.”

Duffy went on to note that many outside contractors “take our money and provide really poor service.” L3Harris, a huge defense contractor, has hundreds of government contracts, many of them with the Pentagon. Right now, as its contract with the FAA is being blamed for the air traffic control failure, L3Harris has a $3.8 billion contract with the Pentagon for high frequency multi-band radios and a $495 million contract for “modification of communications systems,” according to Investor’s Business Daily. Unless I am grossly mistaken, a “modification of communications systems” is what L3Harris just did to the FAA’s air traffic control system.

So, we can all rest easy today that the key systems involved in the travel of millions of Americans every day is in good hands. Here’s hoping that troops in the field using L3Harris radio equipment don’t suffer a total system failure like the FAA did yesterday.

Other than Duffy placing blame on a defense contractor, no other fault has been found for the shutdown that will cost airlines, airports, and travelers tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars when this is all over.

Trump, meanwhile, is on his gold-plated “gifted” Qatari Air Force One on his way to China for a three-way meeting with Xi and Putin. Air traffic control systems outside the borders of the United States were unaffected by the shutdown yesterday, so presumably his trip will go off swimmingly.

It occurs to me that if Trump’s ballroom is being constructed with the precision and care that is being taken with our air traffic control system, we can expect a ceiling collapse or a falling Corinthian column just about the time the thing has its opening ceremony.

I don’t know about you, but I just can’t wait to get on my next flight going somewhere knowing that a former MTV reality star can’t run the FAA and its air traffic control system with $12.5 billion in brand new funds that were appropriated last year to carry out the upgrades that caused the whole system to shut down yesterday.

Putting buffoons in charge has costs. Voters on November 3 showed that they are beginning to realize this grim fact. They turned to Democrats looking for them to provide some solutions when they take charge of Congress in January.

Not a moment too soon.

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Sean (left) and Markwayne (right) held a press conference at the White House. Here is what they said:

It was legacy systems! They’re old! 1980’s! Little bitty copper wires! Old legacy equipment! Our switches and routers got overloaded! They went down! Legacy systems! 1980’s technology!

Congress must give us money! $30 billion! No! We need $50 billion! The greatest president in the world says it’s a national emergency! He wants money! $50 billion! We need emergency money!

The press asked, what about a cyber attack?

Markwayne: We can’t rule that out. We don’t know what happened yet.

Sean: Money! Give me money! $50 billion!

We have the greatest system in the world, and oh, by the way, the greatest president! (That’s an exact quote.)

FAA chief Sean explained at one point that of the “three levels” of air traffic control, they got two operational and decided to lift the ground stop. Later he would say that they had been “in the Oval” since it happened. It sounds an awful lot like Trump told them to get this thing ended, and they’re rushing it.

Blaming it all on Biden will start tomorrow.

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That is official panic-speak for either one of two things: The Trump administration has no fucking idea at all what knocked out the entire FAA air traffic control communications system, or they know and don’t want to tell us yet.

Feel any safer, folks?

The only time a so-called “ground stop” has been ordered before was on 9/11, and they did it on purpose. This time, they did it because they were forced to. That is one great big gigantic massive huge difference.

NBC News reported a few minutes ago that 1,900 flights have been cancelled, and 10,000 more have been delayed. There is very little information coming out right now, but I take that to mean that the cancelled flights are the ones that were scheduled to take off after 4:00 p.m., about the time the whole thing was shut down. That would include all the airplanes on the ground at every airport within the borders of the United States, and probably all the airplanes on the ground at foreign airports that were scheduled to fly to airports within the borders of the U.S. The number of delayed flights is a quick summary of all those flights that will be affected by this shutdown. That would be flights scheduled to leave later tonight and tomorrow morning from U.S. airports, as well as foreign flights destined for U.S. airports which will remain grounded until an all-clear is sounded and planes can take off.

MSNOW and CNN are showing the chaos inside airports, where the schedule boards have not caught up with the situation on the ground. Some boards are showing flights “delayed” that are clearly cancelled at this point. Others are shown as cancelled. I suspect that the people running the airport boards just haven’t gotten around to updating every flight on every schedule board.

What old-boy Markwayne means by his announcement on the situation is that they can’t rule out an act of asymmetrical terrorism by a hostile nation. Hey, everybody out there! Let’s see a show of hands for all those who think he’s talking about Iran without using the word “Iran.”

It was just about this time last month that the refrigeration systems in every major supermarket chains in France were shut down by a secret unit of hackers in the Iran Revolutionary Guard. Seven hundred supermarkets across France got hit, with thousands of individual refrigeration and freezer units affected. The hack hit a computerized system that controlled the temperatures of the refrigeration units remotely. It was a highly sophisticated operation that ended up costing French supermarket companies tens of millions of dollars in spoiled goods.

Why would Iran decide to flex their Revolutionary Guard hacker muscles and shut down the whole air travel system in the United States right now? Trump has been upping the ante against Iran by the day, most recently announcing that we “don’t need a deal with Iran,” a clear signal that in the absence of some sort of peace agreement between the two countries, he intends on attacking Iran sometime soon. Trump has been meeting in the Situation Room with the commander of CENTCOM, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Pete “laughing boy” Hegseth. Trump recently noted that the third U.S. carrier strike force is about to reach the Gulf region.

If it was Iran that caused this massive shutdown of the entire U.S. air travel system, that country is showing Trump what they meant when they announced that they would respond to any new military attack by hitting U.S. assets around the world at any time of their choosing.

I’ve got to tell you, if I were commanding Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, this is exactly what I would do. The networks have not been talking about it, but all military flights within the U.S. are doubtlessly also grounded tonight. One of the news reports said it was at this time unknown if the air traffic control radars and screens were affected, but it is known that the radio frequencies used by air controllers to talk to pilots are down. One expert quoted on MSNOW said there are “alternative frequencies,” and I would suspect he was referring to some highly classified radio frequencies that are relied on only in emergencies. There are not enough of those frequencies to communicate with the 3,000 to 6,000 aircraft that are in the air at any given moment on an average day. That is one hell of a lot of planes needing to be told what direction to fly in at what altitude for every moment they are in the sky.

A very reduced number of those planes remain flying as I write this. When the last of those planes land, they will remain on the ground until the communications system is sorted out and fixed. Air crews are already timing-out, meaning they will not be able to fly aircraft even if a fix is arranged tonight. New crews, including flight attendants, will have to be arranged and scheduled, an enormous logistics hassle all by itself. At this moment, even an FAA website that “lists air traffic control system notices” has gone dark, according to a report in the New York Times, which is struggling to keep up with developments just as the TV and cable networks are.

The Times reports that there were more than 1,000 airplanes in the air “bound for U.S. airports” when the ground stop was announced just after 4:00 p.m. It would appear that some sort of emergency system has been in use, probably using alternative radio frequencies to communicate with planes still in the air and direct them to their destination airports or nearby places to land. It’s mind-boggling to think of the pressure on the people directing those aircraft and the pilots flying them. So far, no airplanes have collided or run out of fuel and crashed, but I would assume that neither occasion is out of the realm of possibility.

If I were to guess, I would say Iran will be found to be behind this national emergency. If that happens, God only knows what Donald Trump will do in response.

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It’s Baffling They Chose Such an Obvious End

In choosing Trump, back in 2016, Republicans took their party in their hands and gave it to someone who obviously, certainly, would be a disaster. They in effect said, “Here. Take our party. Take all that we’ve built with our efforts. Take all our connection with segments of the people. Take all our expectations for the future. Take them for a while, Mr. Disaster, and we’ll see what shape they’re in when you’re done”. I’m still utterly baffled by that.

If your teenager starts to hang around with a group that is constantly in serious trouble you don’t say, “Oh, good! You’ve got new friends”. No, you do everything you can do dissuade them because you know it’s not going to end well. You can’t know exactly how it will go wrong but you know for certain it will. That’s a level of sensibleness that even a moderately mature adult, a moderately reasonable person has. Yet the GOP did the equivalent of jumping at the chance to invite trouble.

Even then Trump had copious evidence of being a loser and a disaster. He had a horrible reputation for how he treated women. He frequently refused to pay contractors on his construction sites. He sank business after business: his meat company, his “university”, two casinos. He was plainly corrupt as with his charitable foundation that had to be shut down. He had become such a bad business risk that he couldn’t get anyone to loan him money. Not his wealthy connections, nor banks or finance outfits in the U.S. or Europe. He only got saved by one European bank that soon had it’s own major corruption problems and ties to Russian finances. The point being he was an obvious disaster that was clearly known and no secret.

It’s like walking with someone and you both see a nail sticking up from a board on the ground and you watch, astonished, as they deliberately step on it. I know people were frustrated, and conservative people wanted aggressive conservative change. Sure, so bypass the would-be aggressive leader who’s bound to create a disaster and keep beating the bushes for someone to fill that role well. But to just go ahead and step on that nail?

At that time I wrote that I mourned the loss of an old frenemy, the previous form of the Republican party. Not that I wanted them to do well but it’s better to have competition between two sane, rational parties, which keeps us on our toes, than to deal with chaos.

GOP leadership can’t just blame it on their public either. Yes, Trump was drawing crowds and support but party leadership could have said they got the message, they’d make some big, bold moves like what Trump was talking about, but not with him. It’s called leadership. A political party is a private enterprise. They could change their own rules any time to say they won’t nominate the most popular primary candidate if they deem him to be a danger to their party. Mind you this is supposed to be the party of business people and wealth accumulators who claim they could manage things better. Where was that supposed management skill on this?

If your family business that you depend on was doing poorly I get the desperate need to bring in someone to make it better. I sympathize. I understand that part. I was frustrated with undynamic Democratic leadership at the same time. But to turn that business over to someone with that track record, something almost as ridiculous as giving it to an intentional internal saboteur, is something outside of my ability to comprehend. That’s apparently a blind spot of mine because I just do not see why some group would do that.

So now, the result, which could be fully anticipated, is here.

I’m glad the Democrats have had a good election. Sad for the damage the country has suffered. Hoping this blue wave can be sustained by making good use of it. Baffled, likely forever, by the unfathomably blind and stupid (the word carefully chosen) choice of the competing party.

Time to move forward, watch, out of curiosity, how Republicans adapt to this, and see what Democrats do with this chance. But that piece of being baffled? That’s just there and is not going away.

“FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT JUST IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY, IT IS DEMOCRACY.” – Walter Cronkite. CLICK HERE to donate in support of our free and independent voice.

The post Why Did GOP Choose a Self-Destruct Path in 2016? appeared first on DCReport.org.

Republicans really don’t seem to understand what just happened to them. They didn’t lose because we spent more money or rigged the vote. They lost because they just spent two years doing nothing but hurting people and looting the country. All of it in broad daylight, daring anyone to do something about it.

Well, we did. America delivered the worst midterm beatdown in half a century.

Republicans responded by putting a mentally disturbed white nationalist in charge of the White House and a pedophile protector in charge of the House GOP caucus. Perhaps they didn’t hear us clearly when we curbstomped them last week? Or maybe they just think if they double and triple down on racism, corruption, and violence, that THIS time, it will totally work?

Or maybe they’re just fucking morons.

Anyway, let’s catch up on what you missed this week!

These are dark times, but I will continue to tell the stories you need to hear in a clear (and usually profane) voice. If I entertain/anger/inform you, preferably all three, please consider becoming a supporting subscriber today for only $5 a month or just $50 a year (a 17% discount!).

Not a fan of long-term subscriptions? That’s OK! I’ll be your one-night stand with a one-time donation through PayPal or Venmo! I’m easy like that! Just don’t tell Mrs. Ogre! 😜

Monday: Catching up on work and cleaning.

Tuesday: Stephen Miller is a suicide pill. Enjoy it, you fascist fucks.

Wednesday: Recording!

Thursday: Podcast!

Friday: Awwww…you want to be our best buds again, tech bros? Eat a bag of dicks, instead! 😁

5 Things I Found Interesting This Week

Erin In The Morning

Largest “Transition Regret” Study Ever Finds It’s Incredibly Rare Up To 10 Years Later

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3 days ago · 54 likes · 1 comment · s. baum (they/them)

The Status Kuo

Threatening the Investigators

The Trump regime is escalating its attacks on congressional Democrats preparing for sweeping oversight hearings. That tells us a lot about what’s keeping Trump and his cronies up at night…

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2 days ago · 668 likes · 45 comments · Jay Kuo

The Downward Spiral by Brynn Tannehill

What Record Russian Losses Mean

Over the weekend hackers published classified and highly detailed data on Russian losses in Ukraine through the end of August this year. They found that Russia had suffered at least 450,000 casualties since the beginning of the war, and closer to 504,000 if you include the lag time for new deaths to be entered into the system. These figures are unconfir…

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3 days ago · 205 likes · 63 comments · Brynn Tannehill

History Can't Hide from Kahlil Greene

Black Americans Are Left Out of the Ozempic Craze

Today, I released “The Untold History of Diabetes and Black Americans,” the third episode of Kahlil Explains, my new series with Vox. In the episode, I examine why Black Americans with diabetes get fewer prescriptions for GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic…

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3 days ago · 164 likes · 10 comments · Kahlil Greene

The Long Read

Realtime Techpocalypse Newsletter

The Overton Window Shifts Toward TESCREAL

Political Optimism and the Underground Seattle Scene…

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5 days ago · 35 likes · 4 comments · Émile P. Torres

A fog of amnesia hit House Republicans Tuesday night, erasing memory of a vast midterm election loss just a week ago as they voted to protect War/Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from impeachment charges – though he will face the same questions in eight weeks when the incoming Democratic majority is seated.

Though voters had expressed clear unhappiness with continuing, ill-defined war with Iran and excesses of Team Trump, the House voted 211-204 to send the impeachment matter to the Judiciary Committee, effectively killing it for now. Neither side even lured all its current members back to vote – and this was to consider not the substance, but the procedural issue of whether to vote on the impeachment challenge from Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who stood alone among Republicans.

What Republicans accomplished was another post-election stand to shield Donald Trump from embarrassment, even more than again enabling Hegseth. But it is more a delay than a decision.

Impeachment resolutions do not die at the end of a Congress, so Democrats, who will control the House and Senate starting Jan. 3, would be able to take up the matter when they assume power.

As it stood, even if the House had advanced the measure, there are more steps and a contentious trial to overcome for a successful ouster. Legally, it is unclear whether there will be agreement that the charges rise to “high crimes or misdemeanors” as required for conviction – or, more simply political, whether Republicans have the votes to block conviction.

But now Democrats will have another chance to craft their own charges in a way that may lure the 11 or so Republican senators whose votes will be needed for conviction.

The Process

With an impeachment charge, it is almost beside the point whether senators feel Hegseth is a good leader or even a qualified leader, but rather whether the punishment of ouster matches the allegations. In effect, the defense from Hegseth supporters is that he may pursue bad policies, but that is not impeachable.

A visibly exasperated Hegseth is fighting the charges with ridicule and appeals to support for the military, labeling the effort a political sham. It’s a defense we will be hearing a lot that skips over any discord with the overwhelming voice of voters from the midterms.

This current Congress still needs to vote about money that the Pentagon has requested, so the issues behind anti-Hegseth unhappiness will not leave center stage.

While impeachment or rejection of Hegseth would be a significant repudiation of the Trump administration’s handling of the war with Iran and a fistful of Pentagon decisions and policies about deploying the military without the consent of Congress, the defense secretary is fighting it as if it is a judgment on the effectiveness of the U.S. military, not about obeying the rules of war or war approvals.

Massie’s charges accused Hegseth of violating federal law, military treaties and the Constitution, and of abusing his authority. A simple majority was enough for passage.

As we know, impeachment is a formal accusation by Congress, which then goes to the Senate for a trial to determine conviction and removal. A two-thirds vote is required for conviction and ouster.

The Charges Against Hegseth

The impeachment measure by Massie, who lost his Trump-ordered primary in May, accuses Hegseth of waging war without congressional authorization and continuing the military campaign after Congress voted to direct the president to terminate the conflict or seek authorization to continue it; violating 30-day deadlines under the War Powers Resolution; carrying out unlawful military strikes against suspected drug traffickers; unlawfully capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro; conducting unauthorized military operations in Yemen; disregarding laws intended to minimize civilian casualties; and abusing his power by retaliating against Sen. Mark Kelly for protected speech.

Not specifically charged, for example, was the policy of “double-tapping” or killing seamen from attacks on those alleged drug boats who had survived the initial incoming fire or whether that struck school in Iran had been purposely targeted. Other administrations since World War II have ignored the War Powers Act without impeachment.

Hegseth dismisses the allegations, selectively choosing facts and historical arguments, calling the impeachment effort a “farce and a stunt.” In a news conference, his first in six months, he attacked Massie as undercutting U.S. troops, whom he described as successful and feeling fully supported for the first time in decades. He did not mention rising suicide attempts, complaints about supplies to the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, the number of disputed identities of slain supposed drug boat operators in the Caribbean or the deaths of schoolchildren in Iran.

There is plenty of bipartisan enmity for Hegseth who has turned the Pentagon into a culture war front attacking what he calls diversity and inclusion by firing women and Black generals and admirals, striking monuments to Black achievement in the military, and fostering a white, supremacist attitude towards creating a “lethal warrior” mentality dependent on picture-perfect physical training and injections of testosterone rather than, say, flu vaccine.

News outlets have noted that when House Republicans impeached Alejandro Mayorkas, who served as the homeland security secretary under Joe Biden, over immigration enforcement, Democrats argued that policy choices did not constitute impeachable offenses. The Republican-led House impeached Mayorkas, but the Senate dismissed the charges.

Of course, the real target here is Trump himself, who, after all, made all the calls that Hegseth may have promoted and executed. It is widely seen as a political mistake for Democrats who want to end the war, tariffs and government service cuts to spend time seeking to impeach Trump without having the votes to assure conviction for a third time.

“FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT JUST IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY, IT IS DEMOCRACY.” – Walter Cronkite. CLICK HERE to donate in support of our free and independent voice.

The post Protecting Hegseth … for Now appeared first on DCReport.org.