Thursday, January 30, 2025

Andy Borowitz Reportings


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Ronald Reagan fired almost all of the nation's air traffic controllers in a single day. What could possibly go wrong? (Photo: Dirck Halstead/Getty Images)

Donald J. Trump may be a draft-dodger, but he's at the front line in the war on aviation safety—a war declared by a Republican president four decades ago.

Last Tuesday—on his second day in office—Trump fired the entire membership of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee as part of his demolition of the Department of Homeland Security.

The DHS, of course, is now headed by former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. Although best known for killing a defenseless puppy, Noem's signature accomplishment in her previous job was launching the state's memorable antidrug slogan: "Meth. We're On it."

I wish I had made that up.

That's right: Trump fired the committee overseeing aviation safety and hired Kristi Noem. Does that make you feel secure, Homeland?

You might wonder why Trump thought eliminating people who keep the skies safe was a good idea.

To the extent that Donald Trump has thoughts, they're not original. His anti-immigrant rhetoric, for example, owes a debt to a prominent German political leader of the 1930s and 40s. And his decision to axe air safety advisors calls to mind the wrecking ball that Ronald Reagan wielded on August 5, 1981, when he fired 11,345 air traffic controllers in one fell swoop.

For decades, anti-union Republicans have hailed Reagan's draconian response to the strike by members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) as the beginning of the end of the American labor movement. But it was also the beginning of a crisis in air safety.

Joseph A. McCartin, a Georgetown professor and author of Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike That Changed America, writes, "Reagan's decision to ban all strikers meant that it took years for the system to come back to its prestrike staffing levels." That system is still reeling.

According to a 2023 report, "Ensuring adequate staffing and training for air traffic controllers—an essential part of maintaining the safety and efficiency of the National Airspace System (NAS)—has been a challenge for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), especially at the Nation's most critical facilities."

Who issued this alarming report? The U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General. As you may have heard, Trump purged over a dozen Inspectors General in an overnight massacre last Friday. Department of Transportation Inspector General Eric Soskin was among them.

There you go again.

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Jim Watson/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Amid the chaos of his first days in office, on Thursday Donald J. Trump accidentally signed an executive order deporting himself to Panama.

Elon Musk reassured reporters that Trump's imminent departure to the Central American nation would have "no effect whatsoever" on the running of the White House, adding, "I got this."

But news of Trump's deportation drew an angry response from Panama's President Jose Raul Mulino, who accused the U.S. of "trying to offload felons to our shores."

"This will not stand," Mulino said. "We will consider any attempt to relocate Donald Trump to Panama an act of war."


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Juan Matute
The Harold Wilke House 
Claremont, California

"Think of how dumb the average person is, and realize half of them are dumber than that." — George Carlin
 


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