Consequences of firing government employees - USDA says it accidentally fired officials working on bird flu and is trying to rehire them

[essentialsaltes]

The FAA’s Troubles Are More Serious Than You Know​

That same day [as Trump blamed DEI for the DC plane-helicopter crash], FAA employees including air-traffic controllers, safety inspectors, and mechanical engineers received an email advising them to leave their job under a buyout program announced just two days before.

More than 1,300 FAA employees replied to the email, out of a workforce of about 45,000. Most of those who responded selected “Yes, I confirm that I am resigning/retiring.”

Newark airport outage last week lasted 60-90 seconds, ATC screens went dark: Sources​

In the air traffic control recordings obtained by ABC News, you can hear an air traffic controller telling pilots that "approach lost all the radars. Three of the four radar screens went black and they have no frequency."

As a result, the Federal Aviation Administration halted all departures to the Newark airport, citing "telecommunications and equipment issues at Philadelphia TRACON." This is the air traffic control facility that directs aircraft in and out of the Newark airport.

Following the outage, several controllers went on medical leave, calling the experience a traumatic event. The controllers are entitled to at least 45 days away from the job and must be evaluated by a doctor before they can return to work.

The facility where controllers work the airspace around Newark airport is located in Philadelphia and was already short air traffic controllers. The current shortage has forced airlines to delay flights for hours over the last eight days.

United Airlines removed 35 round-trip flights per day to help ease congestion and lessen the impact on its customers. As of 3:30 p.m. Monday, flights were arriving four hours delayed on average into Newark.

 

[Pommer]

Newark airport outage last week lasted 60-90 seconds, ATC screens went dark: Sources​

In the air traffic control recordings obtained by ABC News, you can hear an air traffic controller telling pilots that "approach lost all the radars. Three of the four radar screens went black and they have no frequency."

As a result, the Federal Aviation Administration halted all departures to the Newark airport, citing "telecommunications and equipment issues at Philadelphia TRACON." This is the air traffic control facility that directs aircraft in and out of the Newark airport.

Following the outage, several controllers went on medical leave, calling the experience a traumatic event. The controllers are entitled to at least 45 days away from the job and must be evaluated by a doctor before they can return to work.

The facility where controllers work the airspace around Newark airport is located in Philadelphia and was already short air traffic controllers. The current shortage has forced airlines to delay flights for hours over the last eight days.

United Airlines removed 35 round-trip flights per day to help ease congestion and lessen the impact on its customers. As of 3:30 p.m. Monday, flights were arriving four hours delayed on average into Newark.

If calls to “privatize ATC” begin, don’t be surprised.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Voice of America could be back on air next week — watchdog​

Kari Lake says OAN's far-right coverage will fuel Voice of America​

Tuesday night she announced that she had struck a deal to serve up the pro-Trump outlet's news reports for Voice of America's foreign audiences, at no taxpayer cost.

'A mockery of the agency's history'​

"Kari Lake providing One America News Network to our global audiences makes a mockery of the agency's history of independent non-partisan journalism," former U.S. Agency for Global Media Chief Financial Officer Grant Turner tells NPR.

Since World War II, the Voice of America has provided news coverage and cultural programming to lands across the globe without access to a free press, serving an audience that has grown to more than 360 million people weekly. Its charge - established by Congress - is to incorporate criticism of the government's official line to convey the news in its complexity but also to model what a pluralistic democracy looks like.

OAN's resolute support of Trump led to legal trouble​

OAN reached settlements to resolve separate defamation lawsuits filed by the voting software company Smartmatic, a former executive at Dominion Voting Systems, and two Georgia election workers over disproven claims that they had helped rig the 2020 presidential elections for Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Kari Lake says OAN's far-right coverage will fuel Voice of America​

Tuesday night she announced that she had struck a deal to serve up the pro-Trump outlet's news reports for Voice of America's foreign audiences, at no taxpayer cost.

'A mockery of the agency's history'​

"Kari Lake providing One America News Network to our global audiences makes a mockery of the agency's history of independent non-partisan journalism," former U.S. Agency for Global Media Chief Financial Officer Grant Turner tells NPR.

Since World War II, the Voice of America has provided news coverage and cultural programming to lands across the globe without access to a free press, serving an audience that has grown to more than 360 million people weekly. Its charge - established by Congress - is to incorporate criticism of the government's official line to convey the news in its complexity but also to model what a pluralistic democracy looks like.

OAN's resolute support of Trump led to legal trouble​

OAN reached settlements to resolve separate defamation lawsuits filed by the voting software company Smartmatic, a former executive at Dominion Voting Systems, and two Georgia election workers over disproven claims that they had helped rig the 2020 presidential elections for Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

I would rather VOA be shut down than this.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Trump fires Doug Emhoff and other Biden appointees from Holocaust Museum board​

The former second gentleman, who is Jewish, said in a statement that "Holocaust remembrance and education should never be politicized."

But Trump has a mandate from the American voters to politicize the Holocaust and antisemitism!

Out, Doug Emhoff. In, reality TV star.

'Real Housewives' alum Siggy Flicker appointed to Holocaust museum board by Donald Trump​

Flicker, 57, was born in Israel to Jewish parents. Her father, Mordecai Paldiel, escaped Nazi-occupied Belgium when he was 3 years old. The TV personality has been vocal in her support of Israel on social media.

Flicker's stepson Tyler Campanella, whom she shares with husband Michael Campanella, was arrested in April 2024 on five misdemeanor charges in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to NBC News and News12 Long Island.

In a now-deleted social media post, Flicker shared photos that appeared to be taken from inside the Capitol along with the caption, "I love patriots so much. Stay safe Tyler. We love you," per NBC. Additionally, court documents stated Tyler's phone was traced to the Capitol's interior the day of the attack.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Former CDC staff warn of "a five alarm fire"​

Public health workers feel demoralized, and say the sweeping cuts [and firings and bans on communicating on public health issues], made with seemingly little consideration for how the CDC operates, have decreased the nation's ability to track and respond to health threats.

The administration has restricted communications with domestic and global partners, and put strict limits on buying supplies and hiring people. Programs and divisions including those dedicated to injury prevention, sexual, reproductive and oral health and workplace hazard reduction have been decimated or eliminated by recent budget and staffing cuts.

"It's a five alarm fire," says Dr. Anne Schuchat, a former acting director at CDC who retired in 2021 after working at the agency for 33 years. "The kinds of changes that are happening are going to take decades to recover from, and many people will die because of these interruptions."

"I know a lot of friends and colleagues who still work there, a lot of friends and colleagues who have been fired and a lot of friends and colleagues who have retired during these last few months," says Dr. Chris Van Beneden, an epidemiologist who retired in 2020 from CDC, and an EIS alum, class of 1995. "They're decimating CDC. They're decimating public health in the states. That's not efficient — that's shooting yourself in the foot."

A counter protester supports Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

While the protests against the cuts to CDC have been going on for months, Mike Arnold, an advocate against vaccines, has been out here for years.

Arnold says he feels mixed about the layoffs. "I don't like to see administrative people laid off, security people, maintenance people — I feel sorry for them," he says, "The scientists and doctors — no, I don't feel a bit sorry for them."

 

[essentialsaltes]

Trump fires librarian of Congress​

Democrats in Congress condemned the decision by the administration.

“Over the course of her tenure, Dr. Hayden brought the Library of Congress to the people, with initiatives that reached into rural communities and made the Library accessible to all Americans, in person and online,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said in a statement Thursday.

Hayden ... faced scrutiny from a conservative nonprofit, American Accountability Foundation (AAF), that called for her ouster.

“The President and his team have done an admirable and long-needed job cleaning out deep state liberals from the federal government. It is time they show Carla Hayden and [Copyright Office] Shira Perlmutter the door and return an America First agenda to the nation’s intellectual property regulation,” AAF’s president, Tom Jones, told the Daily Mail in late April.

Hayden, who was nominated by former President Obama, was confirmed by the Senate with a 74-18 vote in 2016. Her 10-year term was set to expire next year.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Newark airport outage last week lasted 60-90 seconds, ATC screens went dark: Sources​

The facility where controllers work the airspace around Newark airport is located in Philadelphia and was already short air traffic controllers. The current shortage has forced airlines to delay flights for hours over the last eight days.

It happened again, fortunately in the wee hours.

Radar screens at Newark airport went black again overnight​

The outage happened at 3:55 a.m. and lasted about 90 seconds, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

Air traffic controllers could be heard telling a FedEx plane that their screens went dark and then asking the aircraft to tell their company to put pressure on to get the problem fixed. [Didn't DOGE fix everything by firing people and adding AI?]

In another transmission, a controller told an arriving private jet that the airport just had a brief radar outage and to stay at or above 3,000 feet in case the controllers couldn't get in touch during the aircraft's descent.

 

[essentialsaltes]

In July 2024, Congress found the National Weather Service was understaffed and the report recommended additional funding to hire more.
When Trump took office and instituted a government-wide hiring freeze, it further strained staffs, forcing some to work double shifts to ensure all-day coverage, current and former Weather Service staff told The Washington Post.

Now, following the actual cuts, there may be shifts without staff. Let's hope the tornadoes show up 9 to 5.

National Weather Service seeks to fill 155 ‘critical’ vacancies ahead of hurricane season by reassigning people because the hiring freeze is still on​

The positions that were promoted in an agency-wide email on Tuesday, which was obtained by CNN, represent “critical holes,” the NOAA staff member said, calling the effort to fill them with reassigned specialists from elsewhere a “Band-Aid” approach given that the agency is still under a federal hiring freeze.

“This is not the best solution,” they said.

This has left one weather forecast office — Houston — without any management staff, and caused at least one NWS facility, in Goodland, Kansas, to cut back on its operating hours from the longtime standard of 24/7staffing.

The job openings, which must be filled by people who already achieved a particular level on the federal pay scale and have relevant experience, include functions such as electronic technicians, IT specialists, hydrologists and meteorologists at the helm of a forecast office.

--

I saw elsewhere that the accuracy of the 'American' weather model (an NWS product) had been declining, but the European model seemed to also be struggling with recent weather.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Newark airport outage last week lasted 60-90 seconds, ATC screens went dark: Sources​

Duffy was asked Tuesday morning on CNBC about Newark Airport specifically and appeared rather confident that it was safe.​

“It’s safe and that’s because we have numerous redundancies in place at the FAA,” Duffy told CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin.

[But on Monday...]

Duffy made the startling admission to David Webb, a conservative radio host, during his SiriusXM show on Monday. And it’s a shocking thing to hear from the guy who’s supposed to make sure American air travel is safe.

“My wife was flying out of Newark tomorrow. I switched her flight to LaGuardia,” Duffy told the host of The David Webb Show as they discussed the recent problems at the airport.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Changed His Wife’s Flight to Avoid Newark Airport​

 

[Bradskii]

“It’s safe and that’s because we have numerous redundancies in place at the FAA,” Duffy told CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Notwithstanding that he doesn't appear to think that the airport is safe enough for his family, but presumably safe enough for everyone else, the above comment makes zero sense.

I might accept that it could be logical to say that 'it's safe, even though we have made numerous redundancies'. But to say it's safe because they have made redundancies makes no sense. He seems to be saying that the people they sacked were actually a danger to it's operation.

 

[essentialsaltes]

I might accept that it could be logical to say that 'it's safe, even though we have made numerous redundancies'. But to say it's safe because they have made redundancies makes no sense. He seems to be saying that the people they sacked were actually a danger to it's operation.

I think "redundancy" equals "people we can fire" is not common as a USAnian idiom. I take this to mean they have numerous backup/redundant systems.

 

[Bradskii]

I think "redundancy" equals "people we can fire" is not common as a USAnian idiom. I take this to mean they have numerous backup/redundant systems.

Ah, that would make some sense. I misinterpreted what he meant. But still not safe enough for his wife, I guess. Maybe he should get a back-up just in case.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Changed His Wife’s Flight to Avoid Newark Airport​

Sigh, what did Biden and Mayor Pete do now?

EERIE SILENCE

Second major airport hit with outage as ‘20 pilots unable to reach air traffic control for 6 mins while trying to land’​

Up to 20 pilots were en route to Denver airport when they found themselves unable to contact air traffic controllers on Monday, reported Denver-based ABC affiliate KMGH.

Multiple sources told the news outlet the outage around 2 pm left "between 15 and 20 aircraft unable to communicate with air traffic control during a critical time."

 

[Bradskii]

Sigh, what did Biden and Mayor Pete do now?

EERIE SILENCE

Second major airport hit with outage as ‘20 pilots unable to reach air traffic control for 6 mins while trying to land’​

Up to 20 pilots were en route to Denver airport when they found themselves unable to contact air traffic controllers on Monday, reported Denver-based ABC affiliate KMGH.

Multiple sources told the news outlet the outage around 2 pm left "between 15 and 20 aircraft unable to communicate with air traffic control during a critical time."

I'm going to be as generous as I can in regard to this and other problems. Equipment gets old. Equipment needs to be replaced. Equipment needs regular servicing. You can't blame one administration for a rolling, ongoing problem. Each admin needs to ensure that there are processes in place to keep situations like this to the absolute minimum. So Trump's admin are not necessarily to blame in this instance.

BUT...if there's an understanding that equipment needs to be checked and updated on a regular basis then it's criminally moronic to cut staff levels in regard to the people who specifically do this.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Trump administration asks Supreme Court to lift block on mass layoffs ​

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to lift a judge’s order blocking mass layoffs at 21 federal agencies.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Transportation Secretary Duffy takes a break from air traffic control to solve a major problem.

is

 

[essentialsaltes]

When Trump took office and instituted a government-wide hiring freeze, it further strained staffs, forcing some to work double shifts to ensure all-day coverage, current and former Weather Service staff told The Washington Post.

Now, following the actual cuts, there may be shifts without staff.
Let's hope the tornadoes show up 9 to 5.

Knowing the weather was coming, they moved shifts around to make sure it was staffed when the tornado weather hit.

How a tornado tested a Kentucky weather office that cut overnight staff​

One of the office’s lead meteorologists said the team planned days in advance how to handle the storm threat.

MSN

 

[Bradskii]

One of the office’s lead meteorologists said the team planned days in advance how to handle the storm threat.

Trump said, "I got it. I got it. Why don't we nuke them?"

https://www.axios.com/2019/08/25/trump-nuclear-bombs-hurricanes

 

[essentialsaltes]

NASA celebrated this employee's story of resilience, then tried to scrub it from the internet. Then fired her.​

The trajectory of her life has been so turbulent, in fact, that NASA, her previous employer, published a feature article about her determination on its website. That story chronicles her journey from a poverty-stricken childhood in the Caribbean and years living unhoused, to pursuing her education and rising to become a NASA intern, which ultimately led to working at the space agency full-time.

In January, that article vanished from NASA's website. [It did come back, but...]

Within three days of Trump's inauguration, NASA's website for ... DEIA, women in leadership, indigenous peoples, or environmental justice started being removed from the internet. NASA removed language on its Artemis program pages that referenced the agency's commitment "to land the first woman, and first person of color" on the moon as a part of its Artemis 3 mission — language NASA adopted under Trump's first administration... On Feb. 6, Ferreira learned NASA's piece about her had been removed with the rest.

"It's something that I anticipated was coming," Rose Ferreira, 39, told Space.com. Still, she said, "it did feel like a slap in the face … it feels like everything that I worked for has been taken down little by little."

When Ferreira was an intern at Goddard, she worked on the team that helped release the first deep field image from the James Webb Space Telescope, and had the chance to record a Spanish voice-over for one of NASA’s This Week at NASA videos. She was mentored by Thomas Zurbuchen, former associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, and had the opportunity to shadow him at NASA headquarters. It was 2022, the year NASA would publish their feature about Ferreira. That same year, she was also honored as a Brooke Owens Fellow for her STEM outreach. Ferreira was hired full-time at the space agency as an analyst in the beginning of 2024.