Accuracy in Media Editor Roger Aronoff recently appeared on The Daily Ledger on the One America News Network to discuss an ongoing scandal at the Federal Aviation Administration which has prompted an investigation by the department’s inspector general.
Prior to 2014, as Aronoff reported in May, the FAA recruited its air traffic controllers from either the military or from the pool of people who had graduated after spending years studying and training at FAA programs called Collegiate Training Initiative, or CTI schools. However, it now uses a walk-in process combined with a biographical questionnaire asking questions such as, “How many sports did you play in high school?”
“And what this is really about is ethnic diversity,” said Aronoff on The Daily Ledger. Peter Kirsanow, of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, also came to the same conclusion.
“A news report quotes [Transportation] Secretary [Anthony] Foxx as telling Congress, ‘The FAA took an opportunity to take a broad opening of the aperture if you will to try to get a larger universe of applicants into the [air traffic control] program,’” wrote Kirsanow, according to Newsmax. “I don’t speak jive, but I am fluent in bureaucratese, and this is easy to translate: the FAA didn’t like the racial and gender composition of the people in its pool of potential air traffic controllers.”
“This is the safety of our planes flying in the air,” Aronoff emphasized. “And I can tell you from what I’ve learned is that there have been a number of very close calls…There have been many who have been thrown out of the system because they were so bad.”
The Fox Business Network (FBN) exposed back in May how a leader of the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees (NBCFAE) had distributed a recorded message detailing how its members could cheat on the biographical questionnaire. “But they have a recording that they tell you, they walk you through what to fill out so you will be able to pass this and get hired,” said Aronoff.
“This is a scandal that should be looked at constantly by the news media, but they are ignoring this,” Aronoff said. “It’s like Benghazi or the IRS scandal. [The media] consider it not even worthy of being discussed.”
After Aronoff published his initial article noting how The Wall Street Journal had reported on the change in FAA hiring standards, but not the Obama administration scandal itself, the Journal published an opinion article entitled, “Affirmative Action Lands in the Air Traffic Control Tower:”
After the FAA changed its screening process in 2014, thousands of applicants who were already in the pipeline—people who had obtained an FAA-accredited degree, taken the AT-SAT exam and had been designated ‘well-qualified’ to become air-traffic controllers—were told by the government that they would have to start the process again. ‘But this time, when they applied for a job, their college degrees and previous military experience would mean nothing,’ reported Fox Business. ‘They would now compete with thousands of people the agency calls ‘off the street hires’; anyone who wants to, can walk in off the street without any previous training and apply for an air traffic control job.’
In other words, the current policy is to deliberately favor less-qualified applicants over more qualified applicants in the name of obtaining the ‘right’ racial and gender mix among air-traffic controllers. Advocates of ‘diversity’ insist that discounting objective measures of ability and competence is harmless, but history shows that it can be deadly.
The Obama administration isn’t stopping there in its effort to create a progressive utopia of ethnic diversity, whether or not racial discrimination is, in fact, currently happening.
Stanley Kurtz, writing for National Review earlier this month, called it a “scandal that the mainstream press has largely refused to report on the Obama administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule:”
AFFH is easily one of President Obama’s most radical initiatives, on a par with Obamacare in its transformative potential. In effect, AFFH gives the federal government a lever to re-engineer nearly every American neighborhood—imposing a preferred racial and ethnic composition, densifying housing, transportation, and business development in suburb and city alike, and weakening or casting aside the authority of local governments over core responsibilities, from zoning to transportation to education. Not only the policy but the political implications are immense—at the presidential, congressional, state, and local levels.
Here is Aronoff on One America News’ “The Daily Ledger,” with Graham Ledger:
It’s time once again for the Watcher’s Council’s ‘Weasel Of The Week’ nominations, where we pick our choices to compete for the award of the famed Golden Weasel to a public figure who particularly deserves to be slimed and mocked for his or her dastardly deeds during the week. Every Tuesday morning, tune in for the Weasel of the Week nominations!
Here are this week’s nominees…
Rutgers Racist College Perfesser And Buffoon Brittney Cooper!!
The Noisy Room:My nomination this week goes to Rutgers University Professor Brittney Cooper for proclaiming that all white people are the face of the oppressor. So, let me get this straight… this Rutger’s professor is basically telling whites, ‘y’all look alike to me.’ What racist blather. And she hates men – it’s a twofer. Make that a threefer – she’s hates police too. Brittney Cooper is just chock full of hate – facts be damned. It doesn’t matter to her that Sandra Bland would not get out of her car when instructed by the officer to do so. He went a bit over the top when he said he’d light her up with a taser, but she was being uncooperative and belligerent. When she did get out, she argued with him, called him a bunch of vulgar names and kicked him in the shin. He told her that originally she was going to get a warning; now she was going to be arrested for assaulting a public servant. She richly earned her arrest. But it didn’t end there unfortunately and now you have racists screaming for this officer’s head because Sandra Bland decided to off herself in her cell. She hung herself using a trash can liner. This is a woman who had previously tried to commit suicide. But according to Cooper, it’s so obviously the white, male cop’s fault. How did this woman ever become a professor at a major university?
According to this professor, all whites, just for the simple fact of being white, are guilty and ipso facto – oppressors. Only whites, mind you… If you are Hispanic or a Muslim, you get a pass. But white people? Well, they are devils I hear. Never mind that crimes are committed every day by all races and all ideologies. Cooper holds a special place in her black heart for white male cops. Occasionally you see a cop go rogue or make a mistake. That’s rare. And police are pretty good about justice within their own ranks. Contrary to what Cooper is insinuating, you do not have roving, racist white cops across the nation brutalizing black individuals and killing them without cause. Most crimes that are handled by police are crimes that are without a doubt perpetrated by those in custody. According to the likes of Cooper, if you are black and step out of line, white cops should give you special treatment – a unique deference. That is social justice thinking – Liberal logic. It’s pervasive in the Marxist media and in Liberal academia. I sure wouldn’t want Cooper teaching my children in college – no matter what race they were. For being an unmitigated racist and a hate monger, Cooper has more than earned the Golden Weasel.
Baby Killer And Spare Parts Wheeler N’ Dealer, Planned Parenthood’s Dr Mary Gatter!!
Don Surber: Dr. Mary Gatter — the Josef Mengele of abortion — a soulless plague upon the land, making light of aborting babies and selling their parts. Mustela abortionist. Pray for her.
RINO En Extremis And Obama Enabler Senator Mitch McConnell!:
Ask Marion: My WOTW Nominee is Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Senator McConnell was caught and called out for using a procedural maneuver called “Filling the Amendment Tree” to divert attention away from the fact that he called up an amendment that would allow the Export-Import Bank to continue. Marrying the unrelated EX-IM House bill to the highway bill also made sure that he does not violate the Constitution.
Ted Cruz boldly called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar. The straw that broke the elephant’s back was the vote on reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank. McConnell went one lie too far this time said Cruz, who had voted for Obama’s Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) the first go-around in the Senate based on McConnell’s word and he famously turned against the fast-track trade authority later. Because it was based on lies. Cruz said he had to call out McConnell as a matter of honor.
Leader McConnell called up a House passed bill and added the text of the highway bill to it, then he called up an amendment that allows the Export-Import Bank to continue. This married an unrelated House bill to the highway bill and EX-IM. But then Senator McConnell did something that was unexpected. He offered an amendment for a full repeal of Obamacare. Seemingly an attempt to intimidate the Tea Party faction in the Senate to take the vote on a full repeal of Obamacare and walk away from the fight over EX-IM. The problem is that nobody believes the Obamacare amendment to be anything other than meaningless vote bringing McConnell’s deception to the forefront.
Well, there it is. What a despicable group of Weasels… ANY OF THEM COULD WIN! Check back Thursday to see which Weasel walks off with the statuette of shame!
Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum.
And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council and the results are posted on Friday morning.
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Every week on Monday morning, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum with short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture or daily living. This week’s question: Will The Iran Deal Pass Congress?
The Independent Sentinel: Don’t forget, we don’t want to embarrass Kerry in front of the Ayatollah! That would be our worst nightmare.
The Glittering Eye: It probably won’t pass the House. Whether it passes the Senate will depend on what Chuck Schumer does. It Schumer supports it, it could pass the Senate. If he votes against it, not only is it possible that it won’t pass the Senate it’s possible it could fail in both houses by veto-proof majorities.
JoshuaPundit: It will probably not pass congress initially. Certain Democrats will be given permission to vote ‘no’ for political reasons, so they can say they did later. Chuck Schumer will likely be one of them. The president will veto it and there will not be enough votes to override it.
One would expect a congress who was openly and deliberately lied to about the components of the ‘deal’ and was subjected to being deliberately sidelined by this president and his secretary of state to vomit this out. One would expect an electorate who cared about their country to insist on it.
The pathetic part in all of this is that what congress does really doesn’t matter too much. Thanks to the Corker Bill, the senate abrogated its constitutional power to vet treaties in this case. And our Dear Leader happily took advantage of this folly to take this to the UN, where the Security Council approved it . The Europeans and the Russians are already falling all over themselves to do deals and sell advanced weaponry to Iran…even to the point of acceding to allowing the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Quds Forceto operate on EU soil starting in 2023, and delisting Iranian banks like Ansar and Mehr whom were under sanctions for material support for terrorism and for transactions involving illegal nuclear proliferation.
Iran has already put in place a framework for jihad in the Muslim parts of the Balkans. Whether they’ll bother waiting 8 years to utilize it fully is anyone’s guess. This is another clear signal to Europe’s Jews that they are no longer safe in Europe.
Governor Mike Huckabee said something yesterday about this:
“This president’s foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.This is the most idiotic thing, this Iran deal. It should be rejected by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and by the American people. I read the whole deal. We gave away the whole store. It’s got to be stopped.”
Well said, but I would add one thing. This time, the Jews are armed.
Laura Rambeau Lee, Right Reason: Congress will reject the deal, the President will veto Congress, and Congress will not have the votes to overturn the President’s veto. So unfortunately, yes, the deal will pass, opening the world to nuclear proliferation on a massive scale.
Puma By Design: Will The Iran Deal Pass Congress? You betcha!
John Boehner has already ceded power to Mitch McConnell who is only too willing to cede authority to Barack Obama and in turn, Obama will cede, or attempt to cede our sovereignty over to the third-world dictators at the United Nations.
At the same time, had Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas) not traveled to Vienna to meet with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Americans would not be aware of the two side deals“between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the IAEA as part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).”
So here, we go with the dog and pony show, i.e., hearings, press conferences, tough talking rhetoric, Sunday morning television, etc.
However, in the end, Obama’s lapdogs, Boehner and McConnell will do their fair share to add one more chapter to Barack Obama’s legacy.
I would love to be able to answer this question with a resounding “No”! But I fear in my heart that it will squeak through and pass.
Partly because under the law Congress passed to ensure its review of any Iran deal, unless the Democrats abandon the president wholesale, this deal will stick.
The 60-day review period begins once all of the paperwork gets submitted to Congress, per a statement from Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) That delay would be extended to 12 days if the House and Senate send a joint resolution to the president, and Congress would have 10 more days after that to consider an override.
Opponents of the deal have to be able to override a veto on a disapproval resolution to stop it from going into effect. That’s a tall order, with 291 House votes and 67 in the Senate needed to assure an override.
In many ways, the deal seems to be about the sanctions, not the bomb!
CSMonitor: The Obama administration, by relaxing the tough sanctions on the Persian regime, is basically declaring peace with the Iranians.
For the Israelis and the Saudis, who are fighting proxy wars on several different fronts throughout the Mideast against Iran, this is tantamount to a mass betrayal.
We are avoiding war but our allies can’t.
The sanctions have hurt the Iranian people. They have stunted the growth of their economy. They made it more difficult for the Iranian armed forces to get cash to buy conventional weapons. They delegitimized the government in the eyes of the people.
In other words, the sanctions worked as a weapon in this shadow war between the Jews, the Sunni, and the Shia.
The problem for the Obama administration is that the sanctions only worked as long as there was a grand coalition that was that was willing to enforce it… And that coalition was fraying.
Sanctions are hard to enforce over the long term because the free market is hard to control. People want to do business. Iran has a lot of oil, which is attractive to the Europeans so this deal is the administration was there way to back out.
But then that brings us right back to what this whole ordeal was supposed to be about… What about a nuclear Iran? This what happens when to you send kindergartners in to do a President and a Secretary of States’ jobs.
Well, there you have it.
Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council and the results are posted on Friday morning.
It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere and you won’t want to miss it.
And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?
It was tantamount that Republicans took control of the Senate to get rid of Harry Reid
..check…we made that happen.
It was imperative that we get rid of the Export-Import Bank
…check we did that too.
Given the recent investigative videos on Planned Parenthood, we were well on the way to do that too….until….Mitch McConnell and several other republican senators voted for their own elitist’s agenda and dismissed ours.
Trump is advancing because he is saying what we need to have said without using measured words. So, is anyone in the Senate or any other republican candidates scratching their heads yet on this ‘in-your-face- Trump-phenomenon? Simply put, Americans cannot tolerate cheating and lying much less obstruction. Below, Daniel Horowitz spells it out.
When Donald Trump uttered the words “I like people who weren’t captured” in response to a question about Sen. John McCain’s service in Vietnam, there was a universal sentiment among both admirers and detractors that he would sink like a rock in the polls. His meteoric rise was destined for a swift collapse. Except – that collapse never occurred. Why not?
Trump Maintains his Lead in the Polls
According to a new CNN-ORC International poll, which was conducted a week after Trump’s major gaffe, Trump is leading the field nationally with 18% of the vote, followed by Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. As Breitbart observes, Cruz is now beginning to surpass Rubio for 4th place. In addition, a new NBC News/Marist poll shows Trump with a commanding lead in New Hampshire, leading his closest rival 21%-14%.
When was the last time a Republican survived such a widely circulated career-ending gaffe?
In order to understand this unprecedented stubbornness of the GOP base in coalescing around a protest vote like Trump, look no further than the circus on display in the GOP-led Senate this past Sunday.
The Sunday Massacre in the Senate
What was the emergency impetus for this rare Sunday session in middle of the summer? Were the senators meeting to overturn Obama’s Iran alliance? Were they preparing a package of bills to “comprehensively” address the imminent problem of criminal illegal aliens? Were they holding a crisis session over the Supreme Court’s coup against our Constitution and the impending disaster of anti-religious bigotry unfolding in a number of states? Were they concocting a response to the growing homegrown Islamic terror attacks on our soil? Did they finally decide that our military bases, which have become prime targets for terror attacks, should be populated by armed soldiers instead of unarmed soldiers?
Nope – none of the above. They met on Sunday to renew the corporate welfare Export-Import Bank, the one government agency conservatives have successfully closed down for the first time in years. They met to rush through a massive $300 billion highway bill, in which McConnell blocked all amendments addressing some of the aforementioned issues so that the amendment process can be reserved for the crony Export-Import Bank.
The Senate voted 67-26 to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank and attach it to the “must-pass” highway bill. This amendment was supported by 24 Republicans. Accordingly, McConnell has now followed through with his private commitment to attach Ex-Im to the highway bill, in contravention to what he told GOP members privately. Yet, instead of exhibiting outrage over McConnell’s lie, Sens. Hatch, Alexander, and Cornyn – three allies of McConnell – took to the Senate floor to condemn Cruz for calling him a liar. If only they cared as much about our Constitution and the existential national security and sovereignty threats as they did “Senate decorum.”
Yes to Corporate Welfare, No to Conservative Priorities
Next, Cruz attempted to force a vote on an amendment prohibiting the lifting of sanctions on Iran until they recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and release the four U.S. hostages. Although his amendment was ruled out of order, any senator can force a vote overruling the decision of the chair if 10 other senators (for a total of one-fifth of the 51 quorum) join to “second” the request for a vote. Yet, for the first time in recent memory, GOP senators refused to second the motion, thereby saving Democrats, once again, from having to vote on Iran and Israel. McConnell and Corker had already blocked such amendments in May when they originally passed the unconstitutional Corker-Cardin Iran bill.
John Cornyn had the nerve to argue Sunday that the Corker-Cardin process has already granted the Senate sufficient oversight over the Iran deal and that there was no need for Cruz’s amendment. Evidently, he’s not up on the news that Obama has already abrogated that process.
Finally, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) attempted to offer an amendment to defund Planned Parenthood. Once again, he was rebuffed by the chair and he could not muster even 10 colleagues to force a vote on defunding Planned Parenthood.
Hence, corporate welfare is in; fighting Iran and Planned Parenthood is out. Is this what the American people thought they were getting when they voted for a GOP Senate last November?
The American people, and the GOP base in particular, are tired of liars. They are tired of Obama fundamentally transforming every value, principle, and tradition of this country before their very eyes while the Republican majority they elected stands by idly and focuses on liberal, petty, or trivial priorities – or downright helps Obama implement his policies.
This is exactly why the polls are continuing to show strong support for Trump. He is a protest vote through which voters are declaring their independence from the failed and corrupt Republican Party.
Over the weekend, Ted Cruz has shown a willingness to fight this corrupt political cartel like nobody else in recent history. Obviously, Trump’s persona as a pop culture figure has overshadowed Cruz’s work in the Senate, especially given the “inside baseball” nature of this fight. But if he continues to bring this sort of fighting spirit to the campaign trail, he will be well positioned to reap the windfall from the wave Trump has created if and when The Donald implodes. Unfortunately, that cannot be said of most of the other contenders running in the field.
