It’s very strange that this article on the staffing issues at Newark Airport doesn’t mention the fact that DOGE fired 400 FAA employees a few months ago, and union officials warned about exactly these kinds of shortages.
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I'm sort of fascinated by this ... I thought the federal cuts would mean most workers would want higher base pay to offset the risk of future nonsense. But also there are so many employers for a lot of these jobs ...
I mean I know someone who was hired shortly before January 20th, and functionally did like one thing while now receiving pay until the end of the federal fiscal year. The financial treatment has been pretty ok even if the actual treatment and working conditions have been abominable
That's done at the direction of the civilian-elected government.
You don't want a military coup. Militaries are lousy at things like policing (you think civilian cops are bad, check out how the military does it), civil rights, free speech, &c. They also tend not to give up power.
You and me + Congress (sleeping, might wake up) + courts (hit or miss right now, could use Congressional back up)
Contact Indivisible, 50501, MoveOn and other groups to help organize the citizen part.
In this country, the military has no role, if thats what you are really asking
Not strange at all. I'm tired of pretending like 98% of media has an ounce of credibility left. Most have shown their true colors, the rest have been threatened & sued.
No, not strange. Whatever they may tell themselves, the editors and journalists of mainstream media are complicit in the crimes of the Trump regime. Let’s not give them a pass for being cowardly. Don’t forget, the first Nuremberg trials included publishers.
Always a self-inflicted wound, and like the seven year-old who blames his sister or the dog when confronted, these idiots will blame Biden for it. The press is enabling them.
There is so much that the mainstream media doesn’t mention. Like, why is Saudi Arabia the first presidential trip? My bet is it’s one of the few countries that allow felons to visit. I’m dead serious.
"On Monday, during the shift that typically runs from 3 to 10 p.m., the group that manages Newark air traffic from Philadelphia was operating with one or two fully certified controllers, four of the people said. The target for that period is 14 controllers"
I "supported journalism" with a delivery subscription for thirty years. Finally had enough during Trump 1. For no reason at all, I want to mention there is no limit to the number of successive 6 month "vacation holds" during which you can still read online without paying. ( > 9 years.)
Every piece I've seen about Newark in the past few days has completely memory-holed DOGE. This includes articles from NYT and CNN and CBS. Completely surreal.
We need to start going after the media heads, reporters and the like doing shit at their jobs. They're supposed to inform. They're failing. We should start responding to every report and article, contacting reporters, hold them accountable. The courts aren't going to do it
You'd think alluding to the firings of FAA workers would be the first act in reporting this story. "What has happened recently that could account for this?" That information is readily available (unlike much of the other DOGE wrecking, done under the radar/between lines of code). NYT is negligent.
Yes, maybe the Republican controlled Congress from the last 2 years of Biden’s terms could have done something about it. Biden wanted to hire thousands more controllers and Buttigieg wanted a wholesale upgrade of computer systems.
The New York Times of old is gone. They are sitting on past laurels while churning out adult style Tiger Beat articles for tRUmp. I expect a fold out poster to be included for his birthday.
Someone acts boldly, different disasters occur, Dems, often in disarray, claim, assert, attempt to link, but in vain. There's no cause and effect it's a random universe.
Most of the people fired were technical operations people, the folks that work on the equipment. No controllers have been fired. The staffing issues are from when they moved the controllers from New York to Philly to work the airspace.
The reason so many controllers at Newark are out on trauma leave was due to the recent system crashes. Those systems have been a house of cards for decades and it takes a full time effort to keep them operational. Getting rid of tech crew is an issue.
You are correct, I just want to make sure the record is correct. I am a controller, they didn't fire 400 of us. I just don't like when important details are missing.
So a generally stressful job got more stressful due to cutting of technician support staff on top of generally insufficient staffing and budgeting and staffing reassignments to Philadelphia?
Maybe if the firings hadn’t happened within weeks of Trump taking office with an inexperienced Transportation Secretary at the helm, in such a chaotic and undisciplined way, they would be better positioned to reject criticism….
What about the threats by email that the DOGE dummies made? And the threats from the general public when the DOGE dummies posted every government employee's email address while Trump and the Republican Party broadcast the idae that government employees are evil incarnate? Seems like part of it too.
Are we stupid? Like, did Covid destroy everyone’s brains? We all know DOGE decimated the federal workforce yet somehow 2 months later people can’t figure out why planes are dropping out of the sky? Why is it suddenly so difficult for seemingly everyone to understand simple cause & effect?
Billions of people worldwide haven't been given support to process the trauma of the COVID outbreak and the events and actions that unfolded due to the it. That's on top of any neurological damage the COVID infections cuased.
The current US President was a huge amplifier of the traumatic events.
Journalists and the editorial staff and executives of major media outlets having financial interest (and possibly political values) aligned with keeping the chaos elevated. Trump is just good for the advertisement revenue they rely on because the sensationalism and enragement gets more views.
And, it’s not like they can just go out and hire controllers- it takes about 3 years to become a certified tower controller. The initial training academy in OK City (3-6 months) has a wash out rate of 26%; the overall attrition rate is estimated at 40-50%.
In the world of the New York Times, things just happen. Like an infant without object permanence. The ball was there. And then it wasn’t. We cannot say if it will return or who or what moved it. All we know, is the ball is not there now. Oh wait! It’s back. The world is chaos. Things just happen.
It's clear they're being told to provide cover for the administration either in an attempt to gain exclusive access to the administration, its access journalism at its worst.
Wait no seriously? Seriously? Even as low as my expectations are for the Times I’m still a little surprised by that. (Since it’s not a characterization but rather just a clearly relevant fact.) @jfallows.bsky.social @jayrosen.bsky.social @froomkin.bsky.social
You know what is strange your ability to comprehend basic facts. No controllers were fired, they let go probationary employees that were administration not controllers...we need controllers, teachers, etc not bureaucracy and red tape.
Actually they did fire some controllers then frantically tried to hire them back…I’m sure that didn’t affect anything 🙄 Also who do you think hires and manages the ATCs? Provides support to facilities? It’s become abundantly clear the bureaucrats are important.
That was exactly my reaction. Were there issues before this year? Yes. Did the new administration do anything to help them? Hell no, they made them exponentially worse, but we're not going to mention that.
I don’t disagree but my MAGA-voting family doesn’t read the NYT or any other newspaper, national or local. They vote based on Facebook memes and vibes. So who cares what the NYT does or doesn’t write?
Well, @nytimes.com *used* to be a reliable source of news. Now they are no better than “Facebook meme and vibes”. That’s a serious problem and a pathetic and horrifying reflection of how far this country has fallen.
Article written in the New York Times, including their opinion pieces, appear in newspapers all over the nation. Both my county newspaper and my regional newspaper are careful to select the most-conservative leaning opinions in the NYT and Washington Post to print here. Almost no one has Internet.
+ their equipment going off frequently is not great magnet for workforce.
This was very recent (yesterday?) the bigger outage was just week or two ago, no radio or radar
*In reply*
no official source but the discussions claim that several ATCs took leave after the 2nd case
Yes. Why are they not covering that? New York has the worse problems due to so many airports on the coast and now there are even less controllers. Three controllers took trauma leave after the 90 second blackout in the system. Who replaced them?
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"Dereliction of Duty"?
They are sworn to defend the Constitution against ALL Enemies, "Foreign and DOMESTIC".
You don't want a military coup. Militaries are lousy at things like policing (you think civilian cops are bad, check out how the military does it), civil rights, free speech, &c. They also tend not to give up power.
Contact Indivisible, 50501, MoveOn and other groups to help organize the citizen part.
In this country, the military has no role, if thats what you are really asking
gift link
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/business/newark-airport-delays-staffing-shortage.html?unlocked_article_code=1.G08.vbU9.4T6g8NWcswii&smid=url-share
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Thanks for that MAGAts 🤬
Seriously. It's a freakin' mess in that newsroom.
Will fix that.
"Musk says DOGE will make ‘rapid safety upgrades’ to air traffic control system"
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5129134-el-musk-urges-quick-safety-upgrades-faa/
No one mentioned he was amongst the Republicans who voted down the bill that contained FAA update funding in 2019.
and "employees keep short staffing the position by taking leave tsk tsk."
It’s journalism malpractice
It's the Times.
Here's the response:
…isn’t safe
…doesn’t safe money
& is only about grifting
What a surprise!
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37602529/
The current US President was a huge amplifier of the traumatic events.
https://www.tickcounter.com/countdown/6119379/end-of-trumps-presidency
Same thing when Israel commits a genocide.
"Hundreds of thousands of Gazans now dying of starvation. Humanitarian aid having trouble reading Gaza."
This was very recent (yesterday?) the bigger outage was just week or two ago, no radio or radar
*In reply*
no official source but the discussions claim that several ATCs took leave after the 2nd case
https://youtu.be/g1r8HFDZC3I?si=o4t5Db2DE5I-cgWy
https://youtu.be/7Eaz_ic5ZVQ?si=yBFxstN5Ff3jXfuT