Earlier this week, American Airlines Flight 5342 had a mid-air collision with a U.S. Army Black Hawk Helicopter that resulted in the loss of 67 lives, and when you see some of the things that may or may not have contributed to the accident, you’ll never want to fly anywhere again. As someone terrified of heights and flying, I already won’t get on a plane. What you’re about to read confirms I’ve made the right choice.
Over at National Review, Dan McLaughlin pointed out that folks — mostly left-wing nutjobs — are already trying to put the blame for the incident on the shoulders of President Donald Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Duffy stepped into the role officially the morning before the accident. Which means there’s not a d*mn thing he could have done that would have contributed to this crash. Of course, common sense didn’t stop a slew of liberals from making absolute fools of themselves. It never does.
"It is not standard to have aircraft collide."
– Transportation Secretary Sean DuffyYa think?
And yes – he really said this.
This is what happens when Faux News talking heads are put in charge. Duffy and Hegseth both should be forced to resign.
Oh, and impeach trump.
— Eric Slater (@ericsslater) January 30, 2025
More from The Western Journal:
However, McLaughlin also noted “that Trump has actually moved to fix a problem with how we hire air-traffic controllers, in order to reorient it toward hiring the best people in order to make air-traffic control safer.” The question raises itself: We weren’t hiring air-traffic controllers, some of the most critical positions in civilian government employ, simply on the basis of merit?
This is accurate. We weren’t looking for the best and brightest to fill critical positions where lives hang in the balance. Instead, the government wanted to fulfill a diversity quota in order to be in compliance with the woke agenda of the Democratic Party.
And it all started under the presidency of Barack Obama.
While Obama was in office he allowed the FAA to hire people who had intellectual, psychiatric, and physical disabilities to receive protections during the hiring process. Just read this again and allow the implications to sink into your brain.
Let’s start from an archived 2013 version of the Federal Aviation Administration’s website and its “diversity and inclusion” page.
“Diversity is integral to achieving FAA’s mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel across our nation and beyond,” the page went on to say. “Because diversity is so critical, FAA actively supports and engages in a variety of associations, programs, coalitions and initiatives to support and accommodate employees from diverse communities and backgrounds. Our people are our strength, and we take great care in investing in and valuing them as such.”
Part of the plan was to hire folks with “targeted disabilities.”
“Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring. They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism,” it continued.
In 2019 — under the Trump administration, it must be said — the FAA “announced a pilot program to help prepare people with disabilities for careers in air traffic operations.” Again, it emphasized that it was looking “to identify specific opportunities for people with targeted disabilities, empower them and facilitate their entry into a more diverse and inclusive workforce.” In an archived page from December 2024, the FAA touted “‘On-the-spot’ special appointment authority” to hire individuals via a “non-competitive hiring method,” one of which involved “hiring people with severe physical disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, and intellectual disabilities.”
According to a report published by Fox News this was last updated on March 23, 2022. The Biden administration was already facing lawsuits over discriminatory hiring practices for the position of air-traffic controller.
“From 1989 to 2013, the Collegiate Training Initiative program was a pipeline to a career in air traffic control. The program aimed to ensure future air traffic controllers had the skills and knowledge necessary to carry out the job,” the Washington Times revealed in May 2024. “More than ten years ago, the Obama Administration scrapped 1000 qualified candidates. The administration’s justification was that the pool of applicants was not diverse enough, so they would be purged from consideration. Instead of hiring candidates with the most competency, individuals were elevated for hiring consideration based on their race.”
“Despite their intent to expand the air traffic control hiring pool via DEI, the FAA has recently admitted they are woefully understaffed and that current air traffic controllers are severely overworked. One report found that only 3 of the 313 air traffic facilities around the nation met the FAA targets last year. This has forced the agency to admit safety could be jeopardized. To mitigate such danger, the agency has ‘at times halted departures or otherwise slowed down air traffic,'” the report added.
Thankfully, President Donald Trump has reversed this horrific hiring policy, stating in a fact sheet from the White House that his administration was planning “to immediately stop Biden DEI hiring programs and return to non-discriminatory, merit-based hiring” and would require “the FAA Administrator to review the past performance and performance standards of all FAA employees in critical safety positions and make clear that any individual who fails to demonstrate adequate capability is replaced by someone who will ensure Americans’ flight safety and efficiency.”
It’s true that at this moment, we don’t actually know what led to the crash. It’ll take awhile for the investigation to come to a conclusion on that matter. However, we definitely know that there is likely a role for inept air-traffic controllers in the incident.
Regardless, the point is DEI policies are destructive and dangerous, so let’s trash them all.
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