Dem
55
Ties
1
GOP
44
The good news, such as it is, is that at least nobody had to go to bed without dessert.
We have to imagine that anyone reading this knows, by now, that all airplanes in the United States were grounded for an extended time on Friday. The FAA issued an official "ground stop" order at 3:54 p.m. ET and lifted it at 8:15 p.m. ET. However, many thousands of flights had already been canceled or delayed by the time the agency took action, and there are still tens of thousands of passengers today coping with the after-effects of the incident. That includes, most visibly, a bunch of college football teams, some of whom had to delay the start time for their games today. (Though readers will undoubtedly be relieved to hear that UCLA played, and won, on Friday night, and that USC flew early, so that they were available to lose to Indiana at the normally scheduled time).
In response to the semi-crisis, the Trump administration showed the leadership for which it has become so well known. In the initial announcement, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said the grounding was for "extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety." We understand the need to be somewhat circumspect, but that kind of vagueness is guaranteed to cause many people to assume there is something terrorist- or hijacker-related going on, and to be frightened. Couldn't he say something like, "There is a systemwide computer issue, not unlike what happened with Microsoft 365 this week, and until we chase it down, we are grounding all flights out of an abundance of caution"? That's the official story as of Saturday afternoon (that it was either faulty wiring or a faulty router), and they certainly knew enough detail to blame the electronics on Friday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump fired up his oh-so-informational social media platform. And in his first message sent after the planes were grounded, he shared this:
I am working with Senator Tim Scott and, believe it or not, Senator Adam Schiff, and, additionally, Senators John Cornyn, Raphael Warnock, Steve Daines, Bernie Moreno, Tim Sheehy, Alex Padilla, Mark Warner, Thom Tillis, Chris Coons, Katie Britt, and Dick Durbin, together with Representatives Jason Smith, Nathaniel Moran, Brian Jack, Linda Sanchez, and many others, both Republican and Democrat, on the Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act. The support and popularity of doing this, and bringing Entertainment back to the United States of America, has been unbelievable! Hollywood, and so many other places, have been virtually "emptied out" by the Tax Incentives, and much more, given by other Countries. Everyone feels strongly about the Motion Picture and Television Industry -- and so do I, and we all want to save it. It was MADE IN AMERICA, and must STAY IN AMERICA. The Entertainment Industry has largely moved to Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and other countries, but the actors, producers, and all others involved want to come back home! Importantly, hundreds of thousands of Blue Collar Workers will be positively affected, BIG TIME, by the passage of this Bill. The amount of money spent on these Tax Incentives will be made up tenfold by the money pouring into the Treasury's coffers. Meetings are being set up, routinely, with the Leaders of both Parties in order to, GET THIS DONE! It is a very Bipartisan undertaking, especially in that so much of the money being lost to other countries is coming out of the Blue States. Hopefully Republicans and Democrats will get together and finalize this already very actively negotiated Legislation. It can be done quickly, accurately, efficiently and, importantly, will benefit all of America. MAKE OUR ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP
The find function in our text editor is unable to find a single instance of the words "airplane," "airport," "flights" or "grounded" in there. Perhaps it is malfunctioning. In any case, we can surely all agree that a currently vaporware bill giving tax breaks to filmmakers is at least equally important to thousands of planes being grounded and tens of thousands of passengers being left in the lurch, as some of them (and some of their loved ones) fear a terrorist attack is underway.
On Saturday, as the crisis receded, Duffy adopted a defiant tone, decreeing that this is all the fault of Congress, because they have allowed the air traffic control system to become dangerously decrepit and obsolete. He'd already been pushing for $30 billion for an overhaul, but now he wants $50 billion. "I want Congress to give us emergency funding. This is bipartisan. This is American. I want $50 billion," he said. His criticism is on point, in that the system is indeed decrepit and obsolete. That said, file this away and think of it next year when [CRISIS X] happens, the Democrats try to appropriate emergency funds to address [CRISIS X], and the Republican politicians and right-wing media scream about the blue team's "reckless spending."
And Duffy's outrage, while well-placed, is also very calculated. In theory, while the finger is pointed at Congress, it will not be pointed at the Trump administration. The problem here is that nobody trusts the administration anymore, and so some uncomfortable questions are already being asked. For example:
Did the DOGE cuts play any role in laying the groundwork for this mess?
Did reliance on poorly tested AI products, perhaps acquired thanks to a no-bid sweetheart contract, play any role here?
Why is the Trump administration able to find money for the President's vanity projects, but not for something like the air traffic control infrastructure?
We have no idea what will come of this, if anything. But it's certainly a reminder that once Democrats take over Congress, they will have plenty of things to investigate, between the backlog from the last two years, and all the new lines of inquiry that will undoubtedly be opened up by the Krazy Keystone Kops over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. (Z)