Friday, January 31, 2025
Trump’s shameful DEI smears are bigger than one plane crash
Trump’s shameful DEI smears are bigger than one plane crash
“ ““
Donald Trump has tied diversity to unearned advancement and Thursday’s bizarre press conference — with the entire world watching — advanced that agenda.
President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded to the tragedy of an American Eagle flight colliding with an Army Black Hawk helicopterby suggesting that previous administrations’ diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives were to blame.
Attacking DEI before anyone knows what happened creates a pre-emptive scapegoat scenario. If anyone flying the plane or the helicopter or directing those aircraft at Reagan National Airport tower is anything other than white, straight and male, then they will be presumed in this administration’s eyes to have been promoted beyond their talent or intellect.
It is shameful that Trump and Hegseth are politicizing a tragedy that killed all 67 people aboard the two aircraft. The real focus should be on the victims, the cause of the crash and air safety in America. But here we are with Hegseth looking straight into the camera to declare “the era of DEI is over at the Defense Department” — a non sequitur that upstaged the condolences and empathy those suffering a grievous loss deserve right now. Indeed, the compassion the entire country deserves — because who in America isn’t rattled by the collision of two aircraft just miles from the Pentagon and the White House?
The immediate and unsubstantiated insinuation that diversity was a factor in this crash underscores what should have been obvious when Trump, as one of his first moves in office, signed an executive order abolishing DEI programs and placed DEI officers in government on leave. The president can talk about lowering the price of eggs and making America safer and more secure. But changing the shape and complexion of America’s workforce are clearly at the top of his agenda.
His administration’s anti DEI objective has tied diversity to unearned advancement and Thursday’s bizarre press conference — with the entire world watching — advanced that agenda. Anti-DEI forces have been hawking this trope for years and sadly it has worked. Many Americans now automatically think the acronym stands for a hiring schematic that fast-tracks Black people and other people of color into positions for which they’re not qualified.
Anti-DEI forces have been hawking this trope for years and sadly it has worked.
That is a calculated distortion of the truth, and yet defenders of diversity have not found effective language or strategies to counter this full-on assault on inclusion.
Let’s begin with the smear about lowered standards. DEI programs at their best are about widening the pool of talent to make sure employers find excellence wherever it exists and make those employees feel respected and valued so they stick around. Retention is always a big challenge for businesses. Creating an environment that fosters belonging and respect across differences allows employers to get a strong return on their investment when they onboard new workers. DEI, then, is an invitation to look beyond traditional pathways and pipelines and to retain that talent once they’re hired.
The slander that DEI undermines meritocracy is supremely ironic coming from an administration that has asked taxpayers to accept a series of Cabinet picks whose lack of experience would disqualify them for a leadership job in the private sector. As the administration rails against DEI hires, it has created a new class of employees who could be classified under a LBM heading. Loyalty before merit.
I’ve written on this page before about how widening its aperture helped the Army identify Colin Powell as an officer candidate. It looked more broadly at applicants who were all held to the same standards for merit and valor. Corporations, schools, hospitals and, yes, the government have used this expanded vision to diversify their ranks and, yet, too many have been silent about the benefits of being inclusive.
Meanwhile, words such as diversity, inclusion, quota, affirmative action and equity have been demonized and then weaponized and fully aerosolized in carefully constructed and well-funded campaigns to make people believe undeserving applicants are snatching opportunity away from hardworking Americans. The belief becomes that Black, brown or tan people are leapfrogging over more deserving white people. It strokes anger and indigestion, and that’s exactly why the anti-DEI campaigns have been so effective.
There is a strong defense for diversity in America. Unfortunately — and this is sadly ironic — the case has not always been made by a fully diverse cohort of defenders. That’s sad because DEI initiatives benefit a broad class of people that cuts across race, class, ethnicity and gender including Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, disabled people and members of the LGBTQ community. In some cases, DEI programs have been expanded to include people from underrepresented places such as rural and exurban communities or those who follow different educational paths through trade schools, apprenticeship programs and community colleges.
Women of all colors are actually the biggest beneficiaries, and white women in particular have advanced through these programs.
But if we are honest, the people often making the loudest and most passionate defense of diversity programs are Black people — and that can underscore the mistaken assumption that DEI is largely a leg up for Black folks.
I am cognizant of this even as I write this column. I know that there are people who will secretly cop to being exhausted by what they see as a constant focus on race. And, yes, I also know there are people who believe passionately in inclusion but think the methods for getting there have felt like ham-handed hectoring.
But if the aim is admirable, then why not follow that old standard introduced during the Clinton administration’s review of affirmative action? Mend it, don’t end it.
Some may feel like it’s not their place to defend inclusion because civil rights leaders are running that ball down the field. But know this: With the full-on, all-out assault on diversity — defending and fighting for the idea of a diverse America is a team sport. If you believe in it, then you’re going to have to roll up your sleeves — or be prepared to let hard-won gains slip away on your watch.
I keep waiting to hear a loud and proud defense from more of my brothers and sisters beyond the Black community who I know believe in a diverse America.
Why don’t we hear more from other people who have been benefited from the broader reach of inclusion? Women? Disabled people? People who are gay, lesbian, trans or queer? Asians and Indigenous people? Latinos? Veterans?
Why aren’t more businesses stepping up with a full-throated defense of diversity? With companies such as Target, Walmart, Ford and McDonald'samong those who’ve dismantled their DEI programs under pressure, it is reassuring to see others such as Costco, Apple, Cisco and JP Morgan stand their ground.
Even so, I would like to see their leadership make the specific case tied to business objectives and brand positioning in an Increasingly competitive global marketplace. Simply saying that is is the right thing to do is not enough when the campaign to eradicate DEI practices claims that moral imperatives are just another part of a so-called woke agenda.
Despite the effort to make inclusion a dirty word, in reality there is clear evidence that it can help ensure that an organization finds the best talent to be both innovative and competitive, it helps create a culture of trust and team building. And it is good business in a country that is expected to be majority minority by 2047. A study of 1,700 businesses conducted by Boston Consulting Group found that companies with more diverse leadership teams have higher profits and are more innovative. A series of studies by McKinsey over the past decade had similar findings.
More of these companies may be forced to make that defense in the near future if the anti-DEI warriors make good on their threats to hit businesses with boycotts or lawsuits. On Monday, 19 Republican attorneys general wrote a letter to Costco demanding that the warehouse retailer end its DEI programs within 30 days. Costco recently declared that it would not be ending such initiatives.
I hope Costco continues to fight the good fight. I hope more people from all backgrounds will defend the merits of inclusion and challenge the baseless efforts to pillory diversity. Those voices would be welcome.
What we don’t need to hear are unsubstantiated, knee-jerk claims that a previous administration’s inclusive policies helped cause two aircraft to fall from the sky. Let the investigation proceed and understand that there should be no place for that brand of divisive politics at a moment when the country is united in grief“
Trump spreads racists lies about the Potomac aircraft collision. Contact your Congress members to begin impeachment action to remove Trump from office.
White House eyes fight to expand Trump’s power to control spending - The Washington Post
White House eyes fight to expand Trump’s power to control spending
"President Donald Trump is laying the groundwork for a landmark confrontation over his authority to strike federal spending and regulation, as the White House looks to reconfigure vast swaths of the U.S. government even without approval from Congress.
Only days into his second term, Trump’s extraordinary steps have challenged a fundamental principle of the Constitution: control over the power of the purse, which the president has looked to partly wrest away from lawmakers so that he can shape the federal budget as he wishes.
Already, Trump’s actions have triggered significant legal clashes. In one case, lawyers with the Justice Department on Thursday defended Trump’s ability to “lawfully direct agencies to implement the president’s agenda,” describing a pause in the disbursement of federal funds as “commonplace.”
Separately, infuriated Democrats tried Thursday to block Trump’s selection to lead the White House budget office — Russell Vought — from proceeding to a full Senate confirmation vote. Vought, who has embraced Trump’s aggressive strategy, overcame a brief uprising after Republicans voted to advance his nomination out of committee, foreshadowing the high-stakes budget battles still to come.
Trump moved to reshape federal spending almost immediately after his inauguration with executive orders that halted investments in green energy, aid to foreign nations and money to promote racial equity, describing all of it as wasteful. On Monday, the White House then broadened its spending pause, holding up trillions of dollars across thousands of federal programs — and igniting a court battle that forced the administration to rescind its directive.
But Trump’s previous spending prohibitions remained in place, while his aides signaled the controversial memo was no aberration for a president who has sought novel ways to push the limits of his office. Illustrating their ambitions, a 13-slide presentation about spending, “regulatory misalignment” and the federal workforce began circulating in the White House budget office and other federal agencies in recent days — though a Trump spokeswoman insisted the president’s appointees did not write it.
The presentation, obtained by The Washington Post and other news outlets, outlines in new detail how the White House could revive an obscure and controversial power known as impoundment, potentially allowing Trump to cancel federal funds as he sees fit.
Under a law enacted in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, the president may invoke that authority only in limited cases with clear notice to Congress. But the slide deck suggests Trump officials may seek to trigger a court case that could declare that law unconstitutional, ultimately enabling Trump to reduce or eliminate entire funding categories on his own.
“Trump officials have never seen this document before and it’s pretty apparent it was generated before Trump was in office,” Rachel Cauley, a spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Budget, said in a statement.
The document references Trump’s recent executive orders by number. And it aligns with Trump’s own past pledges to embrace impoundment in a bid “to squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings,” as he told voters in a campaign video in 2023. Vought has echoed those views as he seeks confirmation to lead OMB — telling lawmakers at one point this month that the administration would conduct a legal review on the cost-cutting authority.
In the meantime, legal experts said the flurry of activity raised the odds of a high-stakes constitutional confrontation at the Supreme Court, with the potential to shift the balance of power laid out in Article I of the Constitution in which Congress, not the president, possesses the primary authority to tax, spend and manage the nation’s complex finances.
“What is at stake is the most important structural foundation of our federal government, which is the separation of powers,” said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University, adding that the power of the purse “is how Congress represents us.”
In pursuing potentially trillions of dollars in spending cuts, Trump hopes to rein in federal spending and reduce the growing national debt, which now exceeds $36 trillion. But reality is more complicated: Some of the cuts he seeks are necessary to generate savings to pay for his policy agenda, including an extension of soon-expiring tax cuts that could cost in excess of $4 trillion.
Other spending reductions reflect Trump’s longtime political grievances, particularly his objection to diversity, equity and inclusion programs, or DEI, as well as his aversion to policies enacted by his predecessor. That includes money for green energy programs signed into law by President Joe Biden, which remain halted this week even after the administration rescinded its freeze.
“In the coming weeks and months, more executive action will continue to end the egregious waste of federal funding,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday, after the administration rescinded its memo.
Fearing Trump might continue to clamp down on spending, opponents have continued to petition courts around the country to limit any future effort to freeze federal programs.
On Thursday, roughly two dozen state attorneys general asked a judge in Rhode Island to prevent the White House from instituting any “pause, freeze, impediment, block, cancellation, or termination” of federal funds. In their request for an injunction, the Democratic officials specifically pointed to the “continued implementation identified by the White House Press Secretary” in her past statement.
Another collection of plaintiffs represented by Democracy Forward, a left-leaning group, similarly pressed ahead with its case after the Trump administration pulled back on some of its spending restraints. Citing that, the Justice Department asked a federal judge in D.C. to dismiss the case on Thursday, arguing that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate harm by any interruption in federal aid.
On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, Democrats blasted Trump for seeking to circumvent the congressional budget process, calling it an unconstitutional overreach. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) led Democrats in what they described as a boycott of Vought’s nomination to lead OMB, promising the party would try to hold up his confirmation “until he gives the American people more answers” about his views on impoundment.
Republicans, however, forged ahead anyway: They mustered their own votes in the Senate Budget Committee to approve Vought for consideration by the full Senate in the coming days. Publicly, many GOP lawmakers have sided with the White House on the question of impoundment, though privately, some Republicans have expressed alarm about the president’s claim to greater power to revoke spending that they’ve previously approved.
“We promised to reduce the size and scope of government, and there’s been so much action on that, that it’s caused controversy,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said. “That’s a good thing. We’re disrupting.”
Some of Trump’s early actions resemble plans detailed in the OMB presentation that has circulated widely in Washington, which offers a blueprint for the administration to claim even more authority over spending. It proposes that Trump could “attempt to restore impoundment authority by challenging the ICA’s constitutionality in court,” referring to the Impoundment Control Act, the 1974 law that limits how the president can refuse to spend funds that Congress appropriates.
The OMB document portrays reclaiming the impoundment power as part of a broader shift to address “regulatory misalignment,” including an agency-by-agency effort to delete regulations seen as overreaching, citing a recent Supreme Court case that weakened federal rulemaking powers. The slide deck says the administration could “encourage the exploration of untested statutory pathways for deregulation and policy innovation.”
The campaign to lay the political and legal groundwork for impoundment began in Trump’s first term: Vought, who served as Trump’s first OMB director, and Mark Paoletta, who worked then as OMB general counsel and has returned to that role, argued in a January 2021 memo that existing law “limits the Executive Branch’s ability to spend appropriations effectively.”
Soon after departing government, Vought founded the Center for Renewing America, a conservative advocacy group that champions austerity and Christian values. Paoletta, who joined him at the organization, argued again in a paper last June that limits to a president’s spending powers represent “an unprecedented break with the Nation’s constitutional history and traditions.”
Since his renomination, Vought has offered few specifics as to how Trump might approach the impoundment laws. During a confirmation hearing held before OMB’s spending freeze, Vought told lawmakers that the White House would also “go through a review with our lawyers, if confirmed, including the Department of Justice, to explore the parameters of the law with regard to the Impoundment Control Act”
“He hasn’t developed a strategy he’s announced,” Vought added.
Jacob Bogage contributed to this report."
Fact-Checking Trump’s D.C. Plane Crash News Conference and Remarks on D.E.I. - The New York Times
Fact-Checking Trump’s D.C. Plane Crash News Conference and Remarks on D.E.I.
"President Trump quickly turned to excoriating the diversity goals of his Democratic predecessors and the Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday as he updated the public about the deadly collision over the Potomac River.
Even as he acknowledged that he had no evidence, but was instead relying on “common sense,” he suggested that efforts to hire more people with disabilities and diversify the ranks of the F.A.A. were to blame for the accident late Wednesday that killed 67 people.
Here’s a fact check of his remarks.
What Was Said
“This was before I got to office recently, the second term, the F.A.A. is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website.”
“The F.A.A. website states they include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism all qualified for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country, pouring into a little spot, a little dot on the map, little runway.”
“This was in the Obama administration, just prior to my getting there — and we took care of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, we took care of everybody at levels that nobody’s ever seen before. It’s one of the reasons I won — but they actually came out with a directive. Too white.”
This is misleading. Mr. Trump was citing efforts to recruit people with certain disabilities for air traffic operations that began under his own administration, though the language concerning hiring those with disabilities more generally preceded his first term. And there is no evidence that the government’s efforts to recruit more people with disabilities or the Obama or Biden administration’s diversity efforts were to blame for the crash.
It is unclear whether Mr. Trump was referring to information that is not widely known, but at the time of his remarks, the identities of the pilots and air traffic controllers involved had not been made public.
Under Mr. Trump in April 2019, the F.A.A. announced a pilot program for 20 people with targeted disabilities to work in air traffic operations. Targeted disabilities are a set of statutorily defined disabilities, including, but not limited to, those cited by Mr. Trump, that the federal government emphasizes for recruiting. An archived page from June 2019 named the initiative the Aviation Development Program, which “provides an opportunity for persons with targeted disabilities to gain aviation knowledge and experience as an air traffic control student trainee.”
“The candidates in this program will receive the same rigorous consideration in terms of aptitude, medical and security qualifications as those individuals considered for a standard public opening for air traffic controller jobs,” the F.A.A. said in 2019. Those standards include passing an air traffic skills assessment and a medical exam.
According to a Medium post from the agency, one of the program’s first three candidates graduated in 2021 from the F.A.A. Academy and became an air traffic controller trainee that year. It is unclear how many people who graduated from that program are air traffic controllers today.
Moreover, experts said they could not cite a known instance of a plane crash in which diversity efforts had been cited as the sole cause.
“Historically, there has never been an incident, big or small, where D.E.I. or diversity has ever been attributed as a sole cause or contributing cause,” said Tennessee Garvey, a pilot and the chairman of the board of directors for the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals.
He added that the rigorous standards for hiring pilots, mechanics and air traffic controllers were never relaxed to meet diversity goals, but rather that previous administrations and the commercial air industry overall have worked to remove barriers to entry.
Of the more than 900 Black pilots who made up the Tuskegee Airmen, only one became a commercial pilot, he said. And segregation prevented Black men and women from working in the industry until the civil rights movement and lawsuits.
Robert Fowler Jr., a pilot and professor of aerospace at Middle Tennessee State University, said that costs and time required to qualify for a pilot’s license were still significant obstacles. Despite the industry’s attempt to provide scholarships and cast a wider recruiting net, diversity efforts have not been all that successful.
Mr. Trump’s more specific claims about the F.A.A.’s attempts to recruit people with disabilities ignore his first administration’s embrace of that approach.
As Snopes, the rumor-debunking website, has reported, language on the Federal Aviation Administration’s website says that the agency “actively recruits, hires, promotes, retains, develops and advances people with disabilities.” That specific page appeared as early as February 2013 and remained unchanged through the first Trump and Bidenadministrations. It is no longer on the agency’s website.
The list of the F.A.A.’s “targeted disabilities” cited by Mr. Trump was also present on the agency’s website during the Trump administration. Those include the disabilities Mr. Trump cited as well as hearing, vision, missing extremities and paralysis.
It is also worth noting that the general federal policy for hiring people with disabilities dates back even further, to the Bush administration in 2003 and a 1973 law.
That law, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, initially protected veterans with disabilities from discrimination in federal programs and was expanded through the years to encompass nonveterans and hiring practices.
In 2003, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a governmentwide directive that instructed each government agency to include an annual mission statement, pledge to offer equal employment opportunity regardless of “race, religion, color, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity and sexual orientation), national origin, age, genetic information or disability” and to continually identify and remove barriers to that goal.
While the F.A.A. under several recent administrations and the aviation industry overall have tried to diversify their ranks, including hiring more people with disabilities, progress has been slow.
Annual reports from the F.A.A. show a slight, but not significant, increase in diversity. In 2016, 58.9 percent of its work force consisted of white men and 0.7 percent had targeted disabilities. In 2020, under Mr. Trump, those percentages remained similar at 57.4 percent and 1.1 percent. And in 2023, under Mr. Biden, those percentages were 55.3 percent and 2 percent.
Census data compiled by Deloitte and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows that the proportion of white air traffic controllers has decreased slightly from 79 percent from 2020 to 73 percent in 2022.
And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4.2 percent of pilots were women and 1.4 percent were Black or Hispanic in 2002; 6.2 percent were women and 5.1 were nonwhite in 2017, Mr. Trump’s first year in office; 5.6 percent and 6 percent in 2020; and 8.8 percent and 7.6 percent in 2023.
Professor Fowler said the primary reason the airline industry has tried to hire across different demographics was simply a strategy to fill a labor shortage as pilots retire: “For example, in 2021, we only have 3.9 percent of pilots who are Black,” he said. “That means there are a lot of other individuals out there who could be qualified to fly.”
For Mr. Trump’s claims about an Obama-era directive criticizing the F.A.A. for being “too white,” the White House also cited a lawsuit filed by a conservative legal organization on behalf of applicants for air traffic controller positions. The lawsuit accused the agency under the Obama administration of discriminating against them because its hiring practices were “engineered to favor racial minorities.” That lawsuit is pending in court."
Trump Blames DEI for Tragic Plane Crash, Kookie Kash Patel & Jimmy Chats...
Trump a racist. stupid man.
Thursday, January 30, 2025
President Blames D.E.I. and Biden for Crash Under Trump’s Watch
President Blames D.E.I. and Biden for Crash Under Trump’s Watch
President Trump’s remarks, suggesting without evidence that diversity in hiring and other Biden administration policies somehow caused the disaster, reflected his instinct to immediately frame major events through his political or ideological lens.
David E. Sanger has covered five American presidents in more than four decades at The Times.
President Trump blamed diversity requirements at the Federal Aviation Administration and his two Democratic predecessors for the midair collision over the Potomac River on Wednesday night, saying that standards for air traffic controllers had been too lax.
Mr. Trump cited no evidence, and even admitted when pressed that the investigation had only just begun.
Moments later, he blamed the pilots of the Army helicopter that appeared to fly into a passenger jet that was on final approach to Reagan National Airport, across the river from the capital.
Mr. Trump went back and forth between blaming diversity goals that he said were created by President Barack Obama and President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and then saying that an investigation was necessary.
His instant focus on diversity reflected his instinct to immediately frame major events through his political or ideological lens, whether the facts fit or not.
It is something he has done before: After a terrorist attack in New Orleans a month ago, he blamed illegal immigration, even though the attacker was a U.S. citizen born in Texas.
When asked how he could say that diversity hiring was to blame for the crash even though basic facts about the midair collision were still being sought by investigators, he said, “Because I have common sense.”
“For some jobs, we need the highest level of genius,” he said.
Of the F.A.A. under Mr. Obama, Mr. Trump said: “They actually came out with a directive, too white.”
transcript
Rescue Teams Shift to Victim Recovery in Frigid Potomac River
A commercial jet carrying 64 people and an Army helicopter with a three-member crew onboard collided in midair on Wednesday near Washington, D.C. Officials said at a news conference on Thursday morning that no one had survived the crash.
Despite all those efforts, we are now at a point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation. At this point, we don’t believe there are any survivors from this accident. And we have recovered 27 people from the plane and one from the helicopter.
An audio recording of the air traffic controllers’ warnings to the helicopter just before the crash indicated that a controller first warned the helicopter to look for a Canadair Regional Jet, and then told the helicopter pilot to go behind the jet as it was landing. That exchange will be part of the investigation.
Mr. Trump appeared in the White House briefing room with Vice President JD Vance; the newly sworn-in transportation secretary, Sean Duffy; and the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth. All three men began their comments by praising Mr. Trump’s leadership and repeating that they would eliminate diversity requirements and focus on competence.
Mr. Trump named a new acting head of the Federal Aviation Administration during the news conference; none had been appointed by him until Thursday. The appointee did not speak at the news conference, nor did the head of the National Transportation Safety Board, who was also in the room.
David E. Sanger covers the Trump administration and a range of national security issues. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written four books on foreign policy and national security challenges. More about David E. Sanger“