Incidents of the costliest and most deadly aviation accidents among Army and Marine Corps surged in the past year, data reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation shows, as the Pentagon maintains it is making progress toward minimizing the most serious mishaps.
Both the Army, including Guard and Reserve units, and Marine Corps have experienced historically high rates of so-called “Class A mishaps” and are at risk of enduring the most expensive and fatal aviation year in recent history, the data shows. The military defines Class A mishaps as aviation accidents resulting in loss of airframe, loss of life or at least $2.5 million in damages.
The spike in accidents comes as the force has shrunk overall, putting increased strain on pilots and aircraft maintainers, while the average number of years of experience across the aviation community has also fallen, according to experts and media reports.
Army Accidents Skyrocket
The Army has already seen 11 Class A mishaps resulting in 9 fatalities through the second quarter of fiscal year 2024, which began in October, exceeding the total class A mishap number for all of fiscal year 2023, according to data reported in the April issue of FlightFax, an Army newsletter for aviators. That year, there were 10 Class A mishaps killing 14 aircrew.
Moreover, fiscal year 2023 had a Class A mishap rate of 1.08, significantly higher than the five-year average of 0.85, according to FlightFax. However, that number pales in comparison to the current fiscal year mishap rate of 2.95 per 100,000 flight hours.
“You have the worst record over the past 18 months,” Democratic California Rep. John Garamendi told Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus at a Tuesday hearing in reference to the rash of flight accidents. “What are you doing about it?”
Two fatal Army National Guard AH-64 Apache crashes in February drove leaders to block all helicopter units from flying, a process known as a stand-down, according to a press release. Aviators could resume flight operations once they had completed required training, spokesperson Maj. Jennifer Staton explained to the DCNF.
Then, in March, a UH-72 Lakota helicopter crashed, killing two National Guard soldiers and a U.S. Border Patrol agent, and wounding another soldier.
As of Tuesday, 90% of the units had returned to flight, Gen. Mingus said Tuesday.
More than 12 Army aviators died in helicopter crashes in the first six months of fiscal year 2023, prompting a service-wide aviation stand down that was eventually lifted. But accidents kept happening, and the service ended the fiscal year with 14 dead soldiers in 10 Class A mishaps, more than double the average fatality numbers and the highest since the U.S. withdrew from Iraq in 2011, Defense News reported, citing data from the Army Combat Readiness Center.
A year later, the service is looking at a year with the most frequent Class A mishaps in recent history and quickly approaching the deadliest, according to FlightFax and an Army Combat Readiness Center annual report.
Most of the most serious accidents in 2023 happened with AH-64 Apache helicopters, according to the 2023 review.
Army budget documents show an increased allotment of funds for flying hours between fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2023, but the Army Combat Readiness Center’s annual assessment shows total flight hours dropped in 2020. Class A through Class C mishap rates also increased during that period.
The Army requested funds for flight hours in 2024 that are the same as 2021 levels, the documents show. The Army only requested funds to allow crews 8.7 hours of flight time for fiscal year 2025, the lowest in the previous five years.
The lower number probably stems from an overall limited budget forcing the Army to make difficult trade-offs, retired Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the DCNF.
“In order to execute flying hours, a lot of things have to come together: aircraft have to be available in sufficient quantities and readiness, crews and pilots have to be trained and available, and sufficient numbers of maintenance personnel must be present. Especially in the case of the National Guard, bringing all those factors together has proven to be hard,” Spoehr said.
Most of the mishaps in fiscal year 2023, just as in previous years, are attributable to “human error,” Army spokesperson Jason Waggoner told the DCNF.
“Human error is typically reduced when pilots and crews are able to fly more hours and get more repetitions in. Increasing the number of hours flown by crews is not as simple as just budgeting more money for operations,” Spoehr said.
“Spatial disorientation,” a condition when a pilot misjudges the distance between the aircraft and the ground or other objects, is the primary human error responsible for aviator fatalities, according to the March issue of FlightFax. Shortfalls in existing spatial disorientation prevention measures sparked an ongoing review of training.
When the Army investigated the cause of increasing aviation accidents during the 2023 stand-down, officials found that pilots and aviation warrant officers were significantly less experienced than they were during the period of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Defense News. Mishaps tend to occur when a lower-ranking non-commissioned officer is in charge, compounded with changes to the training environment that rendered even regular training flights more risky.
Spatial disorientation got worse in 2023, with the major accidents in that year and early 2024 all taking place in the more challenging environments, such as flying at night using night-vision devices, flying in formation and over snow or water, Defense News reported. Pilots are getting fewer hours of practice time as well, the Army found. Units are unable to use up all the flight hours Congress has budgeted for due to other limitations, including not having enough crew members.
“Regular Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve aviation formations are suitably manned according to Army manning guidance to meet mission requirements for maintenance and support of Army aircraft,” Waggoner told the DCNF.
In April, the Army rolled out an aviation “stand-up” across the force, Gen. Mingus said Tuesday. The extra training was intended to boost crew member training and awareness without grounding them and further cutting into opportunities to get into the air.
A Bad Year For The Marine Corps
Flight incidents among Marine Corps aviators also appeared to take place at an alarming frequency in recent months.
In fiscal year 2024, Class A mishaps have already struck far above average, Naval Safety Command statistics show. As of April 9, the Marine Corps sustained a sharp increase in Class A mishaps for the first and second quarters of 2024 with a rate of 4.31 per 100,000 flight hours, compared to a 10-year average of 2.24.
Data provided to the DCNF from Naval Safety Command showed the V-22 was involved in 3 Class A mishaps, more than any other manned air platform. However, incidents involving the H-53 Super Stallion helicopter incurred the most fatalities during the same time period — five Marines died in February when a CH-53E went missing in California and was later discovered; the data was still inconclusive as to what went wrong to produce the accident.
In August 2023, three Marines died and 20 more were injured when an Osprey crashed during a multinational training exercise in Australia. Another pilot died after his FA/18 Hornet crashed amid a training flight near Air Station Miramar, California, that month.
The Marine Corps’ Ospreys have returned to flight again through a tiered approach, with modified procedures intended to prevent the same kind of accidents leading to Marine deaths, Capt. Alyssa Myers, a Marine Corps spokesperson, told the DCNF. After finishing emergency procedures training, pilots and crew members are conducting warm-up flights to regain familiarity with the craft, Myers explained. Then squadrons will work with their experienced instructor pilots and crew and conduct flights with copilots before delving into more mission-specific skills training.
Service leaders grounded MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft — a blend between a helicopter and a fixed-wing aircraft — across multiple services in December after one of the Air Force’s units crashed. The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps each operate versions of the Osprey.
“Due to the size of the fleet and number of units, the Marine Corps implemented a tiered approach to deliberately return capability to squadrons,” Myers said. “This process ensures the Marine Corps is able to deploy fully capable units in support of all assigned global mission requirements, while simultaneously ensuring non-deploying units can regain currency and conduct the necessary training to overcome training delays incurred by the 90-day grounding.”
Stopping flights is not an option, however.
“The MV-22’s unique capabilities, such as its long-range operational reach and air refueling capabilities, render it an indispensable asset for crisis response and force-projection and sustainment missions,” Myers said.
The Marine Corps was also hundreds of pilots short at the end of 2022, manning a force of less than half of what it needed to operate its F-35s and other aircraft, former Commandant Gen. David Berger told Congress in April 2023.
“The Marine Corps utilizes highly reliable maintainers and aircrew, conducts exhaustive maintenance, extensively trains pilots, and at every step puts in place safeguards and precautions to ensure a high degree of aviation safety. Marine Corps aviation support units are sized and manned at levels equivalent to historical levels with regard to the number of aircraft in each squadron,” Myers told the DCNF.
The Pentagon Says It’s Trying To Turn Things Around
The cycle of deterioration underlying aviation accidents has been ongoing for years.
A 2020 commission organized by Congress found that experience levels among aviators and maintainers had fallen. Pilots were spending too much time on outdated simulators instead of getting in the air, and they were forced to focus on administrative duties amid a relentless speed of operations.
“Junior pilots and maintainers are starting their careers a lap behind, and then never catching up, all while their units buckle under the initial stress of getting them up to speed,” the report stated. Then, the cycle repeats.
The final report contained 25 recommendations on ways to improve flight safety, including giving pilots more flight hours, finding ways to reduce strain on maintenance personnel and creating a Joint Safety Council to synchronize mitigating efforts across the services.
Efforts to implement most of the recommendations are ongoing, a Pentagon spokesperson told the DCNF. A Joint Safety Council first met in August 2022 and ” is already paying dividends in how the Department tracks and collaborates on joint mishaps,” the spokesperson added.
For example, after the Air Force Osprey crash in Japan that killed eight aviators in November 2023 and contributed to the decision to ground all V-22s, the council met to gain perspective, coordinate communication efforts and discuss what the services should do in the short term, the spokesperson told the DCNF.
Mingus, the Army vice chief, said the service plans to increase flight hours from 202,000 to 225,000 in the 2025 budget.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
AUTHOR
Investigative reporter, defense.
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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.
WATCH: Brigitte Gabriel shares her horrifying story of living under the radical Islamic ‘Palestinians’
/in Culture War, Hot Topics, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics, Religion, Social Issues, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by NEWSRAEL Telling the Israeli StoryBrigitte Gabriel knows firsthand the brutality of radical “Palestinian” Arabs. She lived through it and survived.
From age 10 to 17, Brigitte lived in a bomb shelter, hiding from the Muslims who were torturing and murdering Christians in Lebanon. Taught to hate and fear the Jews, she is so loyal to Israel today that she buried her parents there and founded AmericanCongressforTruth.com. Her book Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America is now available.
Will the World Listen to Brigitte Gabriel?
Brigitte Gabriel has tried to warn the world. She isn’t afraid to say out loud that radical Islamic “Palestinian” Arabs destroy countries and people. The is just a fact. They don’t value life. It’s a terrifying reality that the world refuses to admit. Gabriel experienced the barbarism of these evil people. She knows. And the world is still going to try to claim that these people can be peaceful? That they can live in peace alongside Jewish neighbors and really alongside anyone? No! They cannot.
And so here we are today with a Middle East where even those in the Western world who claim to have the same values as Israel say that Israel should let radical “Palestinian” Arabs create a state right next to them. It’s as if they don’t know any history. It’s as if they are completely blind to the truth.
Please, listen to Brigitte Gabriel. Listen to her plea and her warning. The evil we are fighting against is not just a threat to Jews. It is a threat to all peace-loving people. As she said, “Because what starts in the Middle East doesn’t end in the Middle East.
What starts in Israel doesn’t end in Israel…This is a war between goodness and evil. We either win or they win.” Wake up and stand with Israel! There is no other choice.
ABOUT BRIGITTE GABRIEL
Brigitte Gabriel is a leading commentator on politics, culture, and national security. As a legal immigrant to America born in Lebanon, Ms. Gabriel survived war in the Middle East living in an 8×10 underground bomb shelter from the age of 10 until 17 years old. She lectures nationally and internationally, and her expertise is sought after by world and business leaders.
Ms. Gabriel moved to Israel in 1984 and became a news anchor for “World News,” an evening Arabic news broadcast for Middle East Television seen throughout Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. Her work is of international scope has brought her in contact with world figures such as Margaret Thatcher, George H. Bush, Queen Nour El Hussein, Itzhak Rabine, and Shimon Perez.
Ms. Gabriel immigrated to the United States in 1989 and founded a television production and advertising company. Her clients included ABC, NBC, CBS, Discovery, TLC, History Channel, CNN, the Oprah Winfrey show, 20/20, World NewsTonight, and Good Morning America just to name a few.
She has addressed the United Nations, Australian Prime Minister, members of The British Parliament/House of Commons, members of the United States Congress, The Pentagon, The Joint Forces Staff College, The US Special Operations Command, The US Asymmetric Warfare group, the FBI, and many others.
In addition, Gabriel is a regular guest analyst on Fox News Channel, Newsmax, OAN, and many American and international media outlets worldwide.
Ms. Gabriel is the Founder and Chairman of ACT for America, the largest national security grassroots organization in the U.S. with over two million members. She is a NYT best-selling author of three books, the latest being “RISE” In Defense of Judeo-Christian Values and Freedom.
Ms. Gabriel was knighted in Europe in 2016 and became “Dame Brigitte Gabriel”. She is named one of the top 50 most prominent speakers in America. She speaks Arabic, French, English, and Hebrew.
RELATED ARTICLE: Jewish Girl on UCLA Campus Beaten to the Ground – Sent to Hospital – Truth Press
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EDITORS NOTE: This Avi Abelow, Pulse of Israel video and commentary is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.
August 15th, 2024: 928th Anniversary of the 1st Crusade to protect the Holy Land from Islamic rule — Time to do it Again?
/in Culture War, Elections, Featured, Hot Topics, National Security, News, Policy, Politics/by Dr. Rich SwierThe First Crusade, 15 August 1096 – 12 August 1099, was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic rule. — Wikipedia
We have been writing about the Middle East for decades. It appears we are now at a tipping point where Jews, Christians, Muslims and the state of Israel are under siege. What we are facing is a global war against those who do not follow the teachings of Mohammed.
On August 10th, 2022 The Daily Caller’s Shelby Talcott reported,
In March 10th, 2022 related Daily Caller article Michael Ginsberg reported,
The Center for Security Policy (CFSP) believes Biden and Iran may be close to sealing new nuclear deal. On August 10th, 2022 CFSP’s Senior Editor Dalia Al-Aqidi wrote:
It is time that the United States and its allies recognize the global red-green alliance threats and take proper action.
It is time for yet another Crusade to liberate the oppressed in the Middle Eastern dictatorships starting with Iran, free Europe of the Islamic scourge and stop the Islamization of America?
In 2024 many believe it is! Including 80% of Americans who stand with Israel.
©2024. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.
RELATED ARTICLE: Jewish Girl on UCLA Campus Beaten to the Ground – Sent to Hospital – Truth Press
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President Donald J. Trump: ‘This Is The Final Battle’
/in Courts & Law, Culture War, Election Fraud, Elections, Hot Topics, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics, Social Issues, Video/by Dr. Rich SwierPresident Donald J. Trump has released a video titled “This is the final battle.”
President Trump is right, this is the final battle against the deep state that stretches from the schoolhouse to the White House and from the school board to corporate boards across America.
The CIA has been neutered and is now weaponized.
The DOJ, the FBI and the IRS have been weaponized.
White President Trump is pro-America, pro-Life and pro-Freedom the current administration us just the opposite.
Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. and his regime are anti-American, pro-Abortion and pro-Bid Government Control of we the people.
The pro-Iran Biden Regime, and its helpers in the ICC, are anti-Israel, which has always been the land of the Jews and known to Christians as the Holy Land.
Watch and listen.
This is when we take back our justice system.
This is when we take back our college and university campuses.
This is when we restore our Constitutional Republic.
November 5, 2024 is the date that will go down in history as the day we the people take back control of our lives, our liberty, our families and our freedom.
©2024. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.
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POLL: Vast Majority of Americans Back Israel over Hamas
/in Culture War, Elections, Hot Topics, Immigration, Must Read, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Religion, Social Issues/by The Geller ReportAgainst almost unimaginable odds – the Democrat Jew hating media, Jew hating academia, massive dark money funding anti-Israel terrorism in the information battle-space, , Soros, et al — over 80% of American’s support Israel. Righteous. Divine.
Most Americans support Israel over the terrorist organization Hamas in a poll released on Monday, with 80% of respondents saying they support Israel more in the conflict.
Vast majority of Americans back Israel over Hamas: Poll
AUTHOR
Pamela Geller
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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.
VIDEO: The Politicization of the CIA with John A. Gentry
/in Courts & Law, Elections, Featured, Hot Topics, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Social Issues, Video, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Judicial WatchDr. John A. Gentry served as an intelligence analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Dr. Gentry is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.
Dr. Gentry received his Ph.D. in political science from the George Washington University.
About John A. Gentry
Dr. John A. Gentry is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, where teaches an undergraduate course on the U.S. intelligence community. He writes regularly on intelligence topics and security issues more generally.
He was for 12 years an intelligence analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he mainly worked economic issues associated with the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. For two of those years, he was senior analyst on the staff of the National Intelligence Officer for Warning. He is a retired U.S. Army Reserve officer, with most assignments in special operations and intelligence arenas. He was mobilized in 1996 and spent much of 1996 as a civil affairs officer in Bosnia. Dr. Gentry formerly taught at the College of International Security Affairs, National Defense University, George Mason University, the National Intelligence University, and Columbia University. He is a member of the Editorial Committee of the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, a prominent academic journal that focuses on intelligence studies.
Dr. Gentry has an economics background and received a Ph.D. in political science from the George Washington University. His most recently published book is Neutering the CIA: Why US Intelligence Versus Trump Has Long-Term Consequences (Armin Lear Press, 2023). He co-authored (with Joseph S. Gordon) Strategic Warning Intelligence: History, Challenges, and Prospects (Georgetown University Press, 2019). And, he has published about 35 articles on intelligence topics. He can be reached at jag411@georgetown.edu.
About Neutering the CIA: Why US Intelligence Versus Trump Has Long-Term Consequences
Neutering the CIA is an insider look at how political bias at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has undermined its effectiveness both domestically and internationally. The central case study is the impact of the bias on the interaction between the CIA and the Trump Administration, although the origins of the problem link to Robert Gates becoming head of CIA’s analysis directorate in 1982, and then later, director of the CIA.
Holman Jenkins, Jr. praised the book in The Wall Street Journal: “A new book from Georgetown University scholar and former CIA analyst John Gentry, Neutering the CIA, is worth your time. His academic detachment makes all the more eye-opening his chapter on how James Clapper and John Brennan used diversity as a screen to fill the intelligence community with partisan Obama allies. Only a psychiatrist, though, can explain the media’s silence on the biggest resulting disaster, the fake Russian intelligence supplied by the CIA and used by the FBI to justify its unorthodox actions in the Hillary Clinton email case, now widely understood to have inadvertently delivered Mr. Trump to the White House in 2016.” Beginning in 2016, former and currently serving US intelligence officers, mainly from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), conducted a major political campaign featuring public commentary and leaks designed to thwart the presidential candidacy, and then the presidency, of Donald Trump.
This “politicization” of intelligence, which traditionally is defined as the injection of personal or organizational perspectives into intelligence products to serve personal, ideological, or organizational interests of intelligence officers, reflected a remarkable change from the once-strong CIA ethos of apolitical public service. This book describes the startling political activism of intelligence officers in recent years, identifies its causes, and evaluates its many negative consequences. Most importantly, the activists damaged the credibility of US intelligence in the eyes of Trump Administration officials and undoubtedly many future senior national leaders, thereby eroding the trust in intelligence that decision-makers must have if they are to use intelligence effectively. Although the overt activism subsided in 2021, the Biden administration has not addressed its causes.
The evident success of activists in helping to defeat Trump in 2020 surely has emboldened some intelligence officers, who remain poised to attack presidential candidates whose political views they dislike. This book also identifies actions needed to address this significant threat to American democracy.
Order Dr. Gentry’s Book “Neutering the CIA”: https://www.amazon.com/Neutering-CIA-…
Follow Dr. Gentry on X: @gentry_johna
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EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch video is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.
Army, Marines Barreling Toward One Of The Deadliest And Costliest Years For Aviation Accidents
/in Elections, Hot Topics, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily CallerIncidents of the costliest and most deadly aviation accidents among Army and Marine Corps surged in the past year, data reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation shows, as the Pentagon maintains it is making progress toward minimizing the most serious mishaps.
Both the Army, including Guard and Reserve units, and Marine Corps have experienced historically high rates of so-called “Class A mishaps” and are at risk of enduring the most expensive and fatal aviation year in recent history, the data shows. The military defines Class A mishaps as aviation accidents resulting in loss of airframe, loss of life or at least $2.5 million in damages.
The spike in accidents comes as the force has shrunk overall, putting increased strain on pilots and aircraft maintainers, while the average number of years of experience across the aviation community has also fallen, according to experts and media reports.
Army Accidents Skyrocket
The Army has already seen 11 Class A mishaps resulting in 9 fatalities through the second quarter of fiscal year 2024, which began in October, exceeding the total class A mishap number for all of fiscal year 2023, according to data reported in the April issue of FlightFax, an Army newsletter for aviators. That year, there were 10 Class A mishaps killing 14 aircrew.
Moreover, fiscal year 2023 had a Class A mishap rate of 1.08, significantly higher than the five-year average of 0.85, according to FlightFax. However, that number pales in comparison to the current fiscal year mishap rate of 2.95 per 100,000 flight hours.
“You have the worst record over the past 18 months,” Democratic California Rep. John Garamendi told Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus at a Tuesday hearing in reference to the rash of flight accidents. “What are you doing about it?”
Two fatal Army National Guard AH-64 Apache crashes in February drove leaders to block all helicopter units from flying, a process known as a stand-down, according to a press release. Aviators could resume flight operations once they had completed required training, spokesperson Maj. Jennifer Staton explained to the DCNF.
Then, in March, a UH-72 Lakota helicopter crashed, killing two National Guard soldiers and a U.S. Border Patrol agent, and wounding another soldier.
As of Tuesday, 90% of the units had returned to flight, Gen. Mingus said Tuesday.
More than 12 Army aviators died in helicopter crashes in the first six months of fiscal year 2023, prompting a service-wide aviation stand down that was eventually lifted. But accidents kept happening, and the service ended the fiscal year with 14 dead soldiers in 10 Class A mishaps, more than double the average fatality numbers and the highest since the U.S. withdrew from Iraq in 2011, Defense News reported, citing data from the Army Combat Readiness Center.
A year later, the service is looking at a year with the most frequent Class A mishaps in recent history and quickly approaching the deadliest, according to FlightFax and an Army Combat Readiness Center annual report.
Most of the most serious accidents in 2023 happened with AH-64 Apache helicopters, according to the 2023 review.
Army budget documents show an increased allotment of funds for flying hours between fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2023, but the Army Combat Readiness Center’s annual assessment shows total flight hours dropped in 2020. Class A through Class C mishap rates also increased during that period.
The Army requested funds for flight hours in 2024 that are the same as 2021 levels, the documents show. The Army only requested funds to allow crews 8.7 hours of flight time for fiscal year 2025, the lowest in the previous five years.
The lower number probably stems from an overall limited budget forcing the Army to make difficult trade-offs, retired Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the DCNF.
“In order to execute flying hours, a lot of things have to come together: aircraft have to be available in sufficient quantities and readiness, crews and pilots have to be trained and available, and sufficient numbers of maintenance personnel must be present. Especially in the case of the National Guard, bringing all those factors together has proven to be hard,” Spoehr said.
Most of the mishaps in fiscal year 2023, just as in previous years, are attributable to “human error,” Army spokesperson Jason Waggoner told the DCNF.
“Human error is typically reduced when pilots and crews are able to fly more hours and get more repetitions in. Increasing the number of hours flown by crews is not as simple as just budgeting more money for operations,” Spoehr said.
“Spatial disorientation,” a condition when a pilot misjudges the distance between the aircraft and the ground or other objects, is the primary human error responsible for aviator fatalities, according to the March issue of FlightFax. Shortfalls in existing spatial disorientation prevention measures sparked an ongoing review of training.
When the Army investigated the cause of increasing aviation accidents during the 2023 stand-down, officials found that pilots and aviation warrant officers were significantly less experienced than they were during the period of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Defense News. Mishaps tend to occur when a lower-ranking non-commissioned officer is in charge, compounded with changes to the training environment that rendered even regular training flights more risky.
Spatial disorientation got worse in 2023, with the major accidents in that year and early 2024 all taking place in the more challenging environments, such as flying at night using night-vision devices, flying in formation and over snow or water, Defense News reported. Pilots are getting fewer hours of practice time as well, the Army found. Units are unable to use up all the flight hours Congress has budgeted for due to other limitations, including not having enough crew members.
“Regular Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve aviation formations are suitably manned according to Army manning guidance to meet mission requirements for maintenance and support of Army aircraft,” Waggoner told the DCNF.
In April, the Army rolled out an aviation “stand-up” across the force, Gen. Mingus said Tuesday. The extra training was intended to boost crew member training and awareness without grounding them and further cutting into opportunities to get into the air.
A Bad Year For The Marine Corps
Flight incidents among Marine Corps aviators also appeared to take place at an alarming frequency in recent months.
In fiscal year 2024, Class A mishaps have already struck far above average, Naval Safety Command statistics show. As of April 9, the Marine Corps sustained a sharp increase in Class A mishaps for the first and second quarters of 2024 with a rate of 4.31 per 100,000 flight hours, compared to a 10-year average of 2.24.
Data provided to the DCNF from Naval Safety Command showed the V-22 was involved in 3 Class A mishaps, more than any other manned air platform. However, incidents involving the H-53 Super Stallion helicopter incurred the most fatalities during the same time period — five Marines died in February when a CH-53E went missing in California and was later discovered; the data was still inconclusive as to what went wrong to produce the accident.
In August 2023, three Marines died and 20 more were injured when an Osprey crashed during a multinational training exercise in Australia. Another pilot died after his FA/18 Hornet crashed amid a training flight near Air Station Miramar, California, that month.
The Marine Corps’ Ospreys have returned to flight again through a tiered approach, with modified procedures intended to prevent the same kind of accidents leading to Marine deaths, Capt. Alyssa Myers, a Marine Corps spokesperson, told the DCNF. After finishing emergency procedures training, pilots and crew members are conducting warm-up flights to regain familiarity with the craft, Myers explained. Then squadrons will work with their experienced instructor pilots and crew and conduct flights with copilots before delving into more mission-specific skills training.
Service leaders grounded MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft — a blend between a helicopter and a fixed-wing aircraft — across multiple services in December after one of the Air Force’s units crashed. The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps each operate versions of the Osprey.
“Due to the size of the fleet and number of units, the Marine Corps implemented a tiered approach to deliberately return capability to squadrons,” Myers said. “This process ensures the Marine Corps is able to deploy fully capable units in support of all assigned global mission requirements, while simultaneously ensuring non-deploying units can regain currency and conduct the necessary training to overcome training delays incurred by the 90-day grounding.”
Stopping flights is not an option, however.
“The MV-22’s unique capabilities, such as its long-range operational reach and air refueling capabilities, render it an indispensable asset for crisis response and force-projection and sustainment missions,” Myers said.
The Marine Corps was also hundreds of pilots short at the end of 2022, manning a force of less than half of what it needed to operate its F-35s and other aircraft, former Commandant Gen. David Berger told Congress in April 2023.
“The Marine Corps utilizes highly reliable maintainers and aircrew, conducts exhaustive maintenance, extensively trains pilots, and at every step puts in place safeguards and precautions to ensure a high degree of aviation safety. Marine Corps aviation support units are sized and manned at levels equivalent to historical levels with regard to the number of aircraft in each squadron,” Myers told the DCNF.
The Pentagon Says It’s Trying To Turn Things Around
The cycle of deterioration underlying aviation accidents has been ongoing for years.
A 2020 commission organized by Congress found that experience levels among aviators and maintainers had fallen. Pilots were spending too much time on outdated simulators instead of getting in the air, and they were forced to focus on administrative duties amid a relentless speed of operations.
“Junior pilots and maintainers are starting their careers a lap behind, and then never catching up, all while their units buckle under the initial stress of getting them up to speed,” the report stated. Then, the cycle repeats.
The final report contained 25 recommendations on ways to improve flight safety, including giving pilots more flight hours, finding ways to reduce strain on maintenance personnel and creating a Joint Safety Council to synchronize mitigating efforts across the services.
Efforts to implement most of the recommendations are ongoing, a Pentagon spokesperson told the DCNF. A Joint Safety Council first met in August 2022 and ” is already paying dividends in how the Department tracks and collaborates on joint mishaps,” the spokesperson added.
For example, after the Air Force Osprey crash in Japan that killed eight aviators in November 2023 and contributed to the decision to ground all V-22s, the council met to gain perspective, coordinate communication efforts and discuss what the services should do in the short term, the spokesperson told the DCNF.
Mingus, the Army vice chief, said the service plans to increase flight hours from 202,000 to 225,000 in the 2025 budget.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
AUTHOR
MICAELA BURROW
Investigative reporter, defense.
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BBC Documentary ‘Nika’s Last Breath’ about 16-year old Nika Shakarami’s last moments before being raped and murdered in Iran
/in Culture War, Elections, Hot Topics, News, Policy, Politics, Social Issues, Video/by Amil ImaniIn September 2022, 16-year-old Nika Shakarami attended a Woman, Life, Freedom protest in Tehran.
That day, pictures taken of her burning her hijab made her an icon in the eyes of Iran’s protestors, and a target in the eyes of the Iranian government. Nika never went home. Iran’s government claimed she jumped from a building, but her mother never accepted it.
Now #BBCEye investigates a shocking new document, purportedly written by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which reveals what happened after they hunted her down.
Narrated by Reha Kansara.
WATCH: Nika’s Last Breath: Secret report reveals the hunt for Iranian protester – BBC World Service Documentaries
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Milstein: Condemn Anti-Semitism Without Equivocation to Islamophobia
/in Commentary, Culture War, Elections, Hot Topics, News, Policy, Politics, Religion, Social Issues, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Jamie GlazovLet’s get the terms right.
In 2020, Americans took the streets to protest the death of George Floyd. The phrase “Black lives matter” was born. This chant and slogan is now recognized throughout the world to represent a stance against Black intolerance. When some tried to counter it with “all lives matter” they were perceived as dismissive of the unique struggles of the Black community. One of the better arguments is that universalizing a concept when a specific group of people are harmed, is tantamount to an empty platitude or even a bigoted retort.
Following October 7th Hamas massacre of more than 1,200 Israelis, injuring 7,000 more, the Jewish community is asking the same: condemn antisemitism. Condemn it without caveat and without universal language of “standing against all forms of hate”. Yet, time and time again, “Islamophobia” is evoked as a counterpart of antisemitism. This is misguided. It’s unproductive. And it’s unfair.Let me be clear.Bigotry, prejudice, and violence must be called out and combatted forcefully – whether it is directed at Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or anyone else. Anyone who traffics in hatred must be condemned, and when necessary, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.That said, by definition, antisemitism and Islamophobia refer to two very different phenomena that have no connections to one another. When lumped together, the message is muddled at best and offensive at worst.
The term Islamophobia does not mean hate against Muslims
First, it’s important to define that despite common misconception, the term Islamophobia doesn’t represent hate against Muslims but rather irrational fear of Muslims. “Islamophobia” as a term has existed since the nineteenth century, but became prominent in 1989 when Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Salman Rushdie following his publication of The Satanic Verses. The fatwa not only imposed a death penalty on Rushdie, but also criminalized all the publishers and translators of the book. When Rushdie was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2007 for his services to literature, Iran accused Britain of “Islamophobia”.
Since then, the Islamophobic label has been used increasingly to deter and ultimately criminalize any scrutiny of the behavior any groups or individuals who happen to be Muslim, even when those are committing atrocities like Hamas, or advancing radical or harmful ideas, like Iran’s Mullahs.
Hatred toward Muslim is real, but it doesn’t equal Islamophobia. The Australian man who killed 51 Muslims in 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand was an extremist bigot who hated Muslims. He did not irrationally fear them.
Thus, the better term to use is Muslim-hate and not Islamophobia.
Muslims are often the perpetrators of Antisemitism
Second, the threat to the Muslim community has one clear culprit – far right white supremacism. While these same supremacists often include antisemitism in their ideology, Jews also face threats from every ideological and political direction, including Muslims who harbor antisemitic views more than any other religious community. Therefore, the treatment of hate against Muslims is not and cannot be similar to the treatment of antisemitism.
Since October 7th, anti-Israel and antisemitic rallies led by Muslims have been held around the world. Calls to kill Jews and eliminate the Jewish state spread widely across the Muslim world. Many featured explicit support for Hamas’ atrocious actions. Pro-Hamas imagery was displayed in Tunisia and antisemitic chants rained from Cairo to Italy. These demonstrations are no surprise, given that:
The simple truth is, many Muslims hold bigoted views towards Jews. Stating this truth is not Islamophobic nor rooted in Muslim hate. Ignoring this truth appeases antisemites.
Therefore, lumping antisemitism and Islamophobia together creates a bizarre and ironic situation where the victims and perpetrators are treated the same and looked at from the same lens.
Islamophobia is used as a weapon against those who call out anti-Semitism
Third, accusations of Islamophobia are often used by extremists to whitewash, obfuscate, and distract from dangerous and growing radical movements in the Muslim world.
Following the Charlie Hebdo attacks in 2015, the prime minister of France, Manuel Valls, refused to use the term “Islamophobia” to describe the phenomenon of anti-Muslim prejudice, because, he said, the accusation of Islamophobia is often used as a weapon by apologists for radical Islamists to silence critics.
Few stand up publicly today against radical Islam and those who do risk being silenced under the label of Islamophobes. The sword of Islamophobia is wielded to deliberately chill discourse and narrow the public marketplace of ideas.
We cannot let accusations of Islamophobia silence us when we confront and defend ourselves against the radical ideologies that exist in the Muslim communities and are now growing in Europe and America. Ideologies that undermine our values and seek to target the Jewish people in Israel and worldwide.
The Muslim Brotherhood, its Palestinian wing—Hamas, and its American wing— CAIR, are designated as terrorist organizations by many countries around the world. Confronting CAIR, whose director said he was “happy to see” Palestinians break out of Gaza on October 7th, is not Islamophobic. Luckily, the White House now agrees.
Confronting Mehdi Hasan, the former MSNBC and Al Jazeera journalist, who pushes conspiracy theories about Israel and defended Rep, Ilhan Omar’s antisemitic comments, is not Islamophobic.
Confronting Rep. Tlaib, who called the 10/7 attack “resistance”, lies about Israel regularly, and invokes “from the river to the sea”, is not Islamophobic.
And most importantly, calling out the heinous crimes committed by Hamas against Jews is not Islamophobic. As a matter of fact, standing against Hamas – an organization with complete disregard to Christian, Jewish and Muslim lives and freedoms – is neither Islamophobic nor Muslim hate.
These individuals and organizations deserve to be publicly criticized and discredited not because they are Muslim, but because they are guilty of antisemitism and hate.
In the wake of October 7th, it’s time for our leaders and community to recognize that antisemitism and Islamophobia don’t go hand in hand, have nothing in common, and lumping them together leads to more divisiveness and misunderstanding of both communities.
I stand in solidarity with everyone who faces prejudice and discrimination because of their ethnicity or beliefs. Any decent person ought to. That’s why I will continue speaking out against radical Islam and other extremist movements. That’s why I will not stay silent in the face of phony accusations of Islamophobia.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
AUTHOR
Adam Milstein
Adam Milstein is an Israeli-American “Venture Philanthropist.” He can be reached at adam@milsteinff.org, on Twitter @AdamMilstein, and on Facebook www.facebook.com/AdamMilsteinCP.
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EDITORS NOTE: This Glazov Gang column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.
Why Faith Matters
/in Courts & Law, Culture War, Elections, Healthcare, Hot Topics, News, Policy, Politics, Religion/by The Catholic ThingH.W. Crocker III: Catholics know that faith and reason support each other because faith asks us to conform ourselves to the truth, not to our own whims, material or sensual interests, or pride.
You know you’ve married well when you ask your wife what she thinks about the “archaic” 1864 Arizona abortion law and she says, “Most excellent.” (She’s from California.) To the law’s critics, the U.S. Constitution must be even more archaic, and the Ten Commandments positively primeval (or, as they might say, “handed down by a mythological ‘flying spaghetti monster’ even decades before”).
All of which raises a familiar question, evident to any observer of American politics today. Why is it that Christian people of faith are so much more rational and reasonable than the faithless. The faithful don’t deny biology (when it comes to sex). They don’t deny the laws of grammar (when it comes to gender). And they have a misguided but charming desire to reason with their opponents. Why is that?
Actually, let’s raise the stakes of the question. Why does God desire our assent through faith?
Consider: no religion is more firmly grounded in history – in documented historical events – or steeped in reason than Christianity, where the word, logos, is the beginning of everything. No religion has a deeper library of philosophy than the Catholic Church, the home of Saint Augustine, Saint Anselm, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Cardinal Newman, and countless others.
So, given its historical, reasonable, and philosophical proofs, why does Christianity insist on the importance of faith, which the Letter to the Hebrews (11:1) famously defined as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Well, maybe because it is our faith that determines our goodwill to assess evidence and assign hope as we should – instead of letting pride, or another deadly sin, guide us.
Pride, for many people, is a starting point. “My life is my own,” they say, which is only a partial truth. As a matter of biological fact, our lives are gifts from our parents. Hence, the Biblical commandment to honor one’s mother and father. In some traditional cultures, honoring one’s mother and father is not just a matter of gratitude, but of reverence, of ancestor worship, a recognition that “no man is an island, entire of himself.”
John Donne, the poet who wrote those lines, was an Anglican priest. He would have understood that ultimately his life was a gift from God. A person who believes that will almost certainly have a broader vision, higher aspirations, worthier ambitions, and deeper virtues than the person who believes his life is solely his own. He will more likely recognize the wisdom of the beatitudes; he will be much more willing to take up his cross and follow the path of duty; he will, in short, be a person of goodwill.
What we might call “liberalism,” however, works the other way, reducing the individual to himself (“my life is my own”), his wants and desires (his presumed “happiness”), and his transactions and interests (his material gain and comforts).
Such liberalism has, of course, brought us the “Nones” – the rising tide of young people who profess no religion because they accept no reference points outside themselves. To them, faith and reason, history and philosophy, tradition and gratitude, are all irrelevant. All that matters is “me.” The idea of an eternal soul (especially one facing a judgment outside oneself), of morality that goes beyond self-satisfaction (and self-congratulation: “I am a good person”) is summarily rejected.
The Church teaches that we honor God’s gift of life through seven capital virtues, which are the fruits of faith: humility, charity, chastity, gratitude, temperance, patience, and diligence. These are what distinguish men of goodwill. To the Nones, however, the seven capital virtues are nonsensical.
If our life is our own, why do we need humility, chastity, or gratitude? Charity, temperance, patience, and diligence sound suspiciously like shackles on ourselves. Truth be told, the Nones prefer the seven deadly sins – pride, sloth, greed, lust, gluttony, envy, and wrath – which they transform into positive goods.
Pride, to them – if it is not a flag – is simply self-esteem and self-affirmation, perhaps the highest virtues in their pantheon. Likewise, sloth (the computer gamer in the basement) can be a lifestyle choice. Greed is not a sin, if you’re a materialist. No one can call someone a glutton (that’s fat-shaming). Most of all, lust is not a sin (that’s outdated Christian morality). Lust is freedom to fornicate as one desires. And if our desires – any desires – are denied, we are perfectly justified in expressing envy (perhaps against white privilege) and wrath (against the patriarchy, conservatives, Christians, or anyone who would restrict, say, our desire for an abortion).
Actually, the entire decline and fall of Western Civilization can be seen in this simple shift from “Life is a gift from God” to “My life is my own”; from Christian faithfulness to nihilistic faithlessness; from belief in the Gospel to disbelief in anything but oneself and one’s presumed right to “define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life,” as one robed figure once put it.
Catholics know that faith and reason support each other because it is faith that asks us to conform ourselves to the truth (natural law) and not to our own whims, material or sensual interests, or pride. It is faith that helps us to fully, and objectively, understand reality.
G.K. Chesterton, “in answer to the historical query of why [Christianity] was accepted, and is accepted,” said, “I answer for millions of others in my reply; because it fits the lock; because it is like life.” In faith, we live in accord with reason (and are willing to reason with others). In faith, we live with hope (and thus charity). In faith, we celebrate what is objectively good, and true, and beautiful. It is in faith, then, that we become not just men of goodwill, but men in full, the men God meant us to be.
And it is faith that we realize the value of human life and why “archaic” laws like the Ten Commandments and Arizona’s 1864 abortion law are indeed most excellent.
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AUTHOR
H.W. Crocker III
H.W. Crocker III is a popular historian and novelist. His classic history of the Catholic Church, Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church – A 2,000 Year History, updated and expanded, has just been reissued in hardcover, and his classic history of America’s military, Don’t Tread on Me, updated and expanded, has been reissued in
EDITORS NOTE: This The Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2024 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.
‘Economic Suicide’: Biden Admin Justifies Tax Hike Based On Racial Criteria
/in Budget and Finance, Culture War, Economy, Elections, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics, Regulation, Social Issues, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily CallerThe Biden administration’s analysis of its revenue proposals for fiscal year 2025 argues targeted tax hikes that disproportionately affect white people would ease racial wealth inequality.
Increasing taxes on capital gains and income-based wealth would reduce racial wealth inequality for black and Hispanic families, the Treasury Department outlined in the analysis published in mid-March. The Treasury points out that white families disproportionately hold assets subject to capital gains tax or are in a higher tax bracket, meaning a hike in those taxes would benefit black and Hispanic families.
The Biden administration argues for taxing capital income for high-income earners at “ordinary rates,” increasing the top rate from 37% to 39.6% for those who earn more than $1 million a year. Taxes on net investment income would also be hiked by 1.2 percentage points to 5% for those who make over $400,000 per year, bringing the total top marginal rate to 44.6%.
“Taxing capital gains at 44.6% at the federal level — not to mention state taxes — would be economic suicide,” Preston Brashers, research fellow for tax policy in the Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Before the tax ever took effect, investors would rush to pull their money out of equities subject to such exorbitant tax rates. U.S. businesses would be starved for capital, and business activity would slow to a crawl. Ultimately, corporate income and capital gains income would fall off a cliff, so the net result would be less tax revenue, not more. The middle class and working class would be slammed with mass layoffs and lower real wages.”
The Treasury estimates that white families are the recipients of 92% of the benefits of preferential rates on capital gains and qualified dividends, compared to 2% and 3% for Hispanic families. Only 0.4% of white families, less than 0.05% of black families and 0.1% of Hispanic families will be affected by the proposed rule change on capital gains.
“So, if President Biden’s goal of redistribution is to make the rich poorer, his proposal would be successful,” Brashers told the DCNF. “But if the goal is to lift up the middle class, the plan would fail spectacularly. Note, even the Urban-Brooking Tax Policy Center use estimates that imply that the revenue-maximizing long-term capital gains rate is about 28%, so it’s clear that Biden’s proposal is on the wrong side of the Laffer curve.”
The proposal also calls for establishing a minimum 25% income tax that includes unrealized capital gains for those with wealth over $100 million. The Biden administration argues that the wealthiest taxpayers utilize their stake in unrealized gains to lower their total income and reduce their tax liability, but taxing unrealized gains may force many business owners to sell stakes in their company if they are not liquid enough to pay the burden.
“The wealthy already pay far more than their fair share, while the tax burden on large corporations ends up landing on individuals across the economy, including low-income individuals,” Chris Edwards, the Kilts Family Chair in Fiscal Studies at the Cato Institute, told the DCNF.
The Biden administration also calls for ending a “loophole” that allows families to postpone their estate tax burden by creating trust assets that benefit multiple future generations and are not taxed on the death of the beneficiary. Around 30% of white families receive an inheritance that would qualify as of 2019, compared to 10% for black families and 7% for Hispanic families.
“Left-wing Biden economists seem unable to appreciate that raising taxes on capital hurts labor. Capital and labor work together to produce economic growth,” Edwards told the DCNF. “They are complements. The Biden economists seem to hold the Marxist view that capital and labor are bitter enemies, and that the only way that labor can win is for the government to crush capital.”
The Biden administration is also proposing to expand the child tax credit, temporarily increasing the amount given per child and permanently restoring the full refundability provision. The Treasury argues that it will ease racial disparities since a disproportionate number of black and Hispanic kids have benefited from it in the past.
“These proposals would also increase the fairness of the tax system by addressing some of the features that have historically reinforced racial disparities,” the proposal reads. “Over time, these proposals are expected to increase wealth accumulation by low- and middle-income families and reduce racial wealth gaps.”
The proposal was released in conjunction with calls from the Biden administration to drastically increase spending for fiscal year 2025, adding at least $14.8 trillion to the national debt by the end of a presumptive second term for the president.
The national debt has continued to grow rapidly under President Joe Biden, totaling more than $34.55 trillion as of April 26, up from $34 trillion at the beginning of the year, according to the Treasury Department.
Huge government spending is also putting the U.S. economy at risk of stagflation, with first quarter growth only totaling 1.6% while inflation remains high at 3.5% in March year-over-year.
“This hints at the false view that sadly underlies much of the Biden administration’s economic policy: high-earners only achieve success through luck, and low-earners can only achieve success through government handouts,” Edwards told the DCNF. “That is an appalling, un-American view.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request to comment from the DCNF.
AUTHOR
WILL KESSLER
Contributor.
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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
17 State AGs Refuse to Allow Biden to Insert Abortion into Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
/in Commentary, Elections, Healthcare, Hot Topics, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics, Regulation, Science, Social Issues/by Family Research CouncilAs the Biden campaign continues to push abortion as its primary focus ahead of the November elections, the administration made yet another move to ensure that abortion remains front and center by moving to insert the issue into the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act earlier this month — a move that earned a strong rebuke and lawsuit from a group of 17 Republican state attorneys general.
In mid-April, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced that it was controversially adding abortion into its draft rules for the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, allowing workers to “ask for time off to obtain an abortion and recover from the procedure.” But critics say the legislation was never intended to address abortion and was merely meant to give pregnant women commonsense accommodations in the workplace, including time off for medical appointments, options to sit down and stand up while working, exemptions from heavy lifting, time off for postpartum recovery, bathroom, breastfeeding, food, and water breaks, considerations for morning sickness, and more.
In response, a coalition of 17 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit last week against the EEOC, claiming that the abortion rule is unconstitutional, among other concerns. “[U]nelected commissioners at the EEOC seek to hijack these new protections for pregnancies by requiring employers to accommodate elective abortions — something the Act clearly did not authorize,” said the AG coalition in a statement. “The EEOC’s rule constitutes an unconstitutional federal overreach that infringes on existing state laws and exceeds the scope of the agency’s authority.”
State attorneys general who signed onto the lawsuit include Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia.
Last week, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) joined “Washington Watch” to discuss why he joined the lawsuit against the EEOC’s actions.
The original text “is a wonderful, bipartisan supported [bill] — and we don’t say that very often with things that come out of Washington — to make sure that we accommodate pregnant women in the workplace because we want to have healthy pregnancies and children that come to birth,” he noted. “[L]et’s make sure that we fill a gap in federal law to ensure that pregnant women have those accommodations. … And now, the EEOC that was tasked by Congress to come out with some very specific aspects of what that looks like, now want to make sure that states like Alabama would have to violate state law to somehow or another accommodate a woman who wants an abortion. Alabama is not going to stand for that, along with the [16] other states that are a part of this coalition.”
Marshall went on to point out that even pro-abortion Democrats explicitly stated that the bill had nothing to do with abortion when it was passed, which still hasn’t stopped the Biden administration’s actions.
“One of the Democratic sponsors of this bill made it very clear on the floor of the Senate that this bill had nothing to do with abortion [and] assured his colleagues on both sides of the aisle the intention of this bill,” he observed. “And yet, despite its clear language, what we see is [the] Biden administration co-opting a valid, appropriate law to be able to enforce this pro-abortion agenda. I know we shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s one of the reasons why I’m so proud of my colleagues across the country on many pro-life issues, because we’re standing in that gap that we need in this country to make sure that we can push back on an administration that’s just simply gone too far.”
Marshall further made it clear that state attorneys general have a particularly important role to play in pushing back against the Biden administration’s tendency to try unconstitutional tactics to get its policies into place.
“This is an unelected, unaccountable group,” he underscored. “… [W]e’ve seen this on multiple fronts with this administration, whether it be attacking pro-life states like Alabama. We’ve seen it with this radical gender ideology that’s being pushed through multiple federal programs. It’s why, uniquely, attorneys general in this important time in our nation have the opportunity to be able to hold [the administration] in check.”
The Alabama attorney general additionally pointed to how state law will have strong legal footing against the measure in court.
“[W]hat we see also with this particular rule is an effort to impose a federal policy of this administration on a state like Alabama, whose law is abundantly clear that we are a pro-life state in our Constitution,” Marshall explained. “… [T]o somehow or another use an unaccountable body like the EEOC to circumvent valid state law and constitutional provisions, we think we’re on solid legal footing to be able to push back and to win. … The key right now is attempting to get that initial injunctive relief, to be able to hold this rule in abeyance before its full implementation. But we feel very confident about the work of our colleagues, grateful for the efforts of Tennessee and Oklahoma to lead this charge, but do feel strongly that we’re going to prevail.”
AUTHOR
Dan Hart
Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.
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EDITOR NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
WATCH VIDEO: Prominent Japanese medical professor warns against taking ‘Self Replication Replicon’ jab this fall or winter
/in Commentary, Healthcare, Hot Topics, News/by Leo HohmannThe eminent Professor Masayasu Inoue at Osaka City University Medical School in Japan recently warned that the Japanese government became the first in the world to approve a new type of jab called the “self replication replicon vaccine” that is being rushed to market as we speak. The goal is to have it ready by this fall or winter.
In the video below, the professor, who specializes in molecular pathology, condemns the COVID “pandemic” as propagated by the U.N. World Health Organization, for the purpose of driving genetically modifying COVID jabs into the bodies of all peoples worldwide. He also condemned the U.S. “Warp Speed” project under then-President Donald Trump, which rushed mRNA toxic injections to market that were used to cover up problems with the gene-based shots. The false pretext of Warp Speed was “saving time.” The professor then states that the Japanese government’s rush to market of its new injection will be similar and must be avoided at all costs. We are seeing deception magnified in the world today like perhaps never before. Jesus warned this would be the case in Matthew 24 of the New Testament.
It’s not often such a prominent scientist goes public with a warning of this magnitude. Please share this important 8-minute video with all your loved ones.
2024. Leo Hohmann. All rights reserved.
It’s coal to the rescue as wind and solar fail to keep German lights on
/in Elections, Energy, Environment, Hot Topics, News, Policy, Politics, Regulation, Science/by Committee For A Constructive TomorrowIn Germany they call it the “Energiewende,” meaning energy transition, and it doesn’t work.
Germans have been forced to come to grips with sober energy reality after binging on more than half a trillion Euros of so-called “alternative” energy, such as wind turbines and solar panels. This dramatically increased the price of electricity and created a serious risk of blackouts.
Germany actually just announced plans to reactivate coal plants to provide reserve power and lower the risk of blackouts during the coming winter and years to come.
Bloomberg reports that:
Germany’s coal phase-out plans face a potential setback after the energy regulator predicted the country will need a lot more fossil-fuel power plants on standby to help keep the lights on in the coming years.
The need for so-called reserve capacity to cover shortfalls in wind and solar generation during the 2026/27 winter period is set to reach 9.2 gigawatts, double the amount put aside for the last heating season, the regulator said Tuesday. That’s even more than the 8.3 gigawatts of mainly coal-fired backup deployed in 2022, when Russia curbed pipelined natural gas supplies to Europe.
The solution the German government is pursuing is no solution at all — offsets!
Reuters reports that German “coal-fired power plans will be reactivated and the government will make proposals by summer next year on how to offset increased carbon dioxide these plants will generate this winter.”
Germany will purchase some kind of offset certificates that will have no meaningful impact on the fact that German coal plants burn brown lignite, which is the dirtiest and least efficient variety of coal. It is far inferior to the cleaner-burning hard black anthracite mined in America.
The German energy economy has fallen victim to conflicting Green ideologies.
As Germany invested a fortune in wind and solar which are unable to meet its energy needs, it simultaneously shut down clean, safe, functioning nuclear plants that were already paid for.
Germany provides a powerful energy lesson in what not to do.
Will America learn in time?
AUTHOR
Craig Rucker
Craig Rucker is a co-founder of CFACT and currently serves as its president. Widely heralded as a leader in the free market environmental, think tank community in Washington, D.C., Rucker is a frequent guest on radio talk shows, written extensively in numerous publications, and has appeared in such media outlets as Fox News, OANN, Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Hill, among many others. Rucker is also the co-producer of the award-winning film “Climate Hustle,” which was the #1 box-office film in America during its one night showing in 2016, as well as the acclaimed “Climate Hustle 2” staring Hollywood actor Kevin Sorbo released in 2020. As an accredited observer to the United Nations, Rucker has also led CFACT delegations to some 30 major UN conferences, including those in Copenhagen, Istanbul, Kyoto, Bonn, Marrakesh, Rio de Janeiro, and Warsaw, to name a few.
EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.
Nuclear Is A Renewable Energy: Wind and Solar lobbyists are fighting this reality!
/in Elections, Energy, Environment, Hot Topics, News, Policy, Politics, Regulation, Science/by John Droz, Jr.As a physicist, I believe that one of the reasons that intelligent energy policies have not gained sufficient traction is that we are allowing those with political agendas (vs independent scientists) to define some key energy terms.
[One thing I know from golf, is that a match is usually won or lost at the first tee — where the terms and conditions are agreed on.]
Outside of “fiscal responsibility” and “all of the above” the most significant misused concept that we have unwittingly gone along with is the term “renewable” energy.
Giving some critical thought to this moniker is no academic matter, as what is defined as “renewable” determines what sources of electricity are eligible for massive handouts and other preferential treatments.
In other words, what is legally defined as a “renewable” will have profound technical, economic, and environmental consequences on the United States.
The renewable energy lobby is extremely aggressive on all aspects of legality, and has made sure that only politically favored energy sources are awarded these perks (e.g., see here). Note that in that definition, “renewable” energy is not defined by what it does (or does not) do, but rather by a list of politically acceptable sources!
To my knowledge, there is no “official” definition of this bandied-about term. When asked, the meanings proffered vary quite a bit, but the key difference between a renewable and non-renewable energy source is usually the rate of replenishment.
Consider this typical definition: “Renewable is an energy resource that is replaced in a reasonable amount of time (our lifetime, our children’s lifetime)…”
Such a word as “reasonable” is subjective — not scientific. Who determines what is a reasonable amount of time, and what is it: 20 years? 100 years? 500 years?
The reason the definition of renewable is focused on time, derives from the concern that we may exhaust some electrical energy sources, relatively soon.
But how much is enough to have? For instance, if we have 100 years of some fuel, would the replenishment rate really be that important?
Clearly, within the next 100 years of use, there will be some profound changes made regarding the efficiency and applications of said fuel’s implementation — in ways we have little understanding of today.
At the time there were well-reasoned expectations in 1950 about what would happen in the year 2000. The message is that almost ALL of the best guesses were wrong. A good example is that today we use LESS renewable energy than we did in 1950!
In the same vein, prior technology predictions by experts (like Einstein) have also proven to be significantly off the mark. Who among us will stand to say that we have a better understanding of technology than Einstein?
In that light, let’s look at the case for nuclear being “renewable.”
First, we should answer how much longer will our nuclear fuel supply last. Consider:
a) This says: “The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2008 jointly produced a report saying that uranium resources are adequate to meet nuclear energy needs for at least the next 100 years at present consumption levels. More efficient fast reactors could extend that period to more than 2,500 years.”
It is absurd to say that a 2500-year supply doesn’t qualify this as renewable.
b) In addition, there are several proven alternatives to uranium as a source. One example is Thorium (which is much more plentiful than uranium).
[Read this 2023 study about “The Sustainability of Mineral Resources.” Note that it states “no tools are currently available to allow a comprehensive evaluation of mineral raw material abundance“.]
c) Bernard Cohen (Professor Emeritus of Physics at Pittsburgh University) has stated that breeder reactors have enough raw material energy sources to last us over a Billion years. That’s Billion with a “B”.
When considering these sample facts, an important thing to keep in mind is this quote from some scientists at an excellent University of Michigan site: “Only 50 years ago, nuclear energy was an exotic, futuristic technology, the subject of experimentation and far-fetched ideas.”
Hard as it might seem to believe, most of this nuclear development has occurred in just the tiny space of 50± years — so having any fuel supply that lasts 100± years could cover an enormous amount of new development.
Second, some definitions of “Renewable” include a reference to “power derived from natural sources”. Of course, that is amusingly non-descriptive since essentially all sources of electrical power are based on natural materials, and that includes nuclear.
To read more about this I’d strongly recommend Bill Tucker’s excellent book Terrestrial Energy, or a more condensed discussion he wrote.
A third factor sometimes appearing in the definition of “Renewable” is a reference to a power source’s ability to reduce CO2 (i.e., to be a “clean” source). That same University of Michigan site (above) has this very informative graph about how (worldwide) we have been able to reduce CO2 since 1973.
Now, for the sake of comparison, let’s quickly look at the flip side of this question, at the poster child for renewables: wind energy.
The indisputable fact is that an indispensable part of wind power electricity production is the requirement of LARGE amounts of rare-earth metals. Each wind turbine is reported to have several thousands of pounds of rare-earth materials (typically 2000± pounds per MW. An average-size wind turbine today is something like 5 MW.)
This study concluded that all rare-earth materials might be gone in 20± years! And several more reports warn us of the very limited supplies of these materials, like this.
I could go on, but just considering this information, which is the true renewable: wind energy or nuclear power?
©2024. John Droz, Jr. All rights reserved.
Here are other materials from this scientist that you might find interesting:
My Substack Commentaries for 2023 (arranged by topic)
Check out the chronological Archives of my entire Critical Thinking substack.
WiseEnergy.org: discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.
C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.
Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.
Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2023 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?
MUST WATCH: How Muslims are ‘Assimilating’ in Germany by Logan’s Warning
/in Culture War, Hot Topics, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Video/by Dr. Rich SwierA reader, JW, sent us a link to this Logan’s Warning commentary and video. Please read about the Islamic State in Germany and watch the short video of how Islamic State Muslims are “assimilating” in Europe, by going to the streets and calling for Germany to become an “Islamic caliphate.”
This is exactly what I predicted would happen over a decade ago. That once Muslims felt they have enough power they will rise up and call for Islamic rule across the West. Today we see an example of this infiltration in Germany.
‘Islamic State In Germany…’: Thousands Storm Streets In Hamburg Amid Israel-Hamas War
Massive protests erupted in Germany as thousands took to the streets, calling for an Islamic State. Over 1000 people hit the streets of Hamburg, calling for an end to “dictatorship values”, Muslim protesters were seen carrying signs in support of Islamic fundamentalism. The protest was reportedly organised by a group called ‘Muslim Interaktiv’. Watch full video for more.
Link to Article.
©2024. Logan’s Warning. All rights reserved.
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