- reverse pyromania
- Posts
- Just So Dumb
I end up watching network news when I’m back in the hometown. Last night’s ABC news had two stories. First, air traffic controllers are calling in sick and some towers are empty:
A week into the government shutdown, flight delays and cancellations are starting to climb as sick calls involving air traffic controllers leave a number of airport towers and control facilities without enough staff to properly handle all flights.
The air traffic control tower overseeing airspace over Nashville International Airport was operating at an extremely limited amount of staffing on Tuesday, forcing some approach traffic to be handled by the air traffic control center in Memphis, Tennessee.
Flights in and out of Nashville were operating with an average delay of more than 2 hours on Tuesday evening.
Dallas and Chicago were two other areas seeing delays Tuesday due to staffing shortages.
Flight delays in Dallas are averaging around 30 minutes and Chicago delays are averaging 40 minutes, according to FAA advisories.
Right after this story, there was a story about Trump’s threat to withhold back wages from federal employees, even though the law he signed clearly states they must be paid. It was a good piece, packing a lot into a short period:
It noted that Trump had signed the law to pay back wages after the shutdown.
It mentioned that Congress still gets paid even during the shutdown
Trump looked like a capricious clown because he wouldn’t say who would get paid and who wouldn’t.
A federal employee was interviewed pointing out the obvious: it’s a real problem not to get a paycheck.
In one of the reports, the head of the ATC union also noted that they encouraged their members to go to work, but some of them have daycare that they might not be able to pay, for example, so it’s no surprise that absenteeism is up.
Hakeem Jeffries even got a few seconds with his tough statement about the law saying that back wages must be paid.
Overall, I don’t see this as any kind of a win for Trump, and his threat to withhold back pay made him look like what he is: an asshole. I’m betting we get below the new 43% crazification factor in the next Trump approval polling.
Reply