Weekly Montgomery County report from Peter Huessy Week of February 3, 2025
For this week, how is the President doing on issues? How did union members vote in 2024? School Choice Advances in Tennessee and Texas; the role of DEI in the crash at Reagan airport explored---program severely criticized many years ago including by the Chicago Tribune, Tucker Carlson, and GAO. The President signed the Laken Riley Act into law. For those interested in missile and air defense, a former classmate of mine (Mr. McGee) writes about an Iron Dome technology for the United States. It regularly intercepts some 95-99% of rockets and missiles launched by Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah. And what is going on—is the US measuring up re reading and math test scores? Some new data shows the schools are slipping, Maryland students lost 6 points and only two states improved.
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School Choice May Be Finally Coming to Texas's 5 Million Kids Everything is big in Texas - including their second largest in the country school system. The school choice coalition that we partner with ALEC keeps coming close, then coming up short. SB 2 creates a fully universal Education Savings Account (ESA) Program. All students in the State of Texas are eligible to apply and may be accepted into the program, including students that are:
Prioritization If the number of applications to the program do not exceed the number of spots available in the program, all eligible applicants will be accepted into the program. If the number of applications exceeds the number of program spots available, the following prioritization scheme will be used:
Allocation per Student All students that are accepted into the ESA program are annually credited with a minimum of $2,000 to their Education Savings Account. However, if a family participating in the ESA program chooses to enroll their participating child in an accredited private school, that student's account is instead annually credited:
Both the House and the Senate have set aside $1 billion for private school scholarships in their budget proposals. Tennessee Enacts Universal School Choice By a vote of 20 to 13, the Tennessee Senate reportedly approved the Education Freedom Act of 2025 during a special session of the legislature on Thursday. Earlier in the day, the bill was approved by the House 54 to 44. Tennessee will become the thirteenth state in the country to implement universal (or almost universal) school choice with the stroke of Governor Bill Lee’s pen. A $447 million statewide publicly funded school voucher program was finally approved by Republican lawmakers on Thursday. This was a long-awaited win for Governor Bill Lee and numerous proponents of school choice who have spent millions promoting the proposal. After just over 90 minutes of debate, the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 20 to 13. After more than four hours of debate on Thursday, members of the House passed the bill against bipartisan opposition by a vote of 54 to 44, with one member abstaining. Tennessee students, including those enrolled in public schools and those already attending private institutions throughout the state, will be eligible to receive 20,000 scholarships totaling approximately $7,300 under the new taxpayer-funded Education Freedom Scholarship program. At first, there would be income criteria for half of the places. Additionally, it provides one-time bonuses of $2,000 for every public school teacher in the state, ensures that school districts will not face a reduction in state TISA budget allocations, and allocates monies for school building and upkeep. The bill is now headed to Governor Bill Lee’s desk, where he is anticipated to sign it into law as one of his top legislative priorities. As soon as he signs it, it will go into effect, enabling the Tennessee Department of Education to start implementing it right away. Worst Air Crash in two Decades The nation’s worst airline crash in more than two decades left no survivors and confronted the new Trump administration with its first major emergency response. It was the deadliest domestic airplane accident since 2001, and it raised questions immediately about the capabilities of the nation’s air traffic control systems. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was on his second day on the job when the crash occurred. He said he believes the accident was “absolutely” preventable, echoing comments from President Trump. New Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the Pentagon and Army are investigating the collision, calling it “absolutely tragic.” Mr. Trump said, “We’re all searching for answers.” “We’ll be working very, very diligently in the days to come,” he said. “We do not know what led to this crash, but we think we have some pretty good ideas.” The president announced that Christopher Rocheleau would be the new acting head of the Federal Aviation Administration in the wake of the midair collision. Mr. Trump said he changed “the Obama standards” for the FAA in 2017 to hire people of “superior intelligence.” But he blamed Mr. Obama and former President Biden for installing “horrible” air traffic controllers and renewing diversity policies in the air travel system. He claimed the FAA was recruiting people with “severe psychiatric disabilities” and called former Biden Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg “a disaster” for promoting diversity. In a capital that was already roiling with partisanship at the start of the new administration, Democratic finger-pointing also emerged. Rep. Norma Torres, California Democrat, blamed the Trump administration’s hiring freeze for the deadly collision and cited a 2024 law directing the administration to hire the maximum number of air traffic controllers. However, the hiring freeze ordered by Mr. Trump does not include federal safety positions, such as air traffic control jobs. Mr. Trump also signed an executive order in his first week that highlights the need to hire more FAA employees. The agency said in September that it had hit hiring numbers for the fiscal year by employing 1,800 air traffic controllers, with the largest number of hires in nearly a decade. The Government Accountability Office had warned the FAA in September of “urgently needed” updates to its aging air traffic control systems. The report said nearly 40% of systems used to direct air traffic are unsustainable, with aging equipment, lack of spare parts and not enough staff with extensive knowledge of the old equipment. The FAA said at the time that it was improving 90 of its 138 air systems, but the report suggested that most modernization efforts would not be completed for at least six years. Federal investigations of air disasters take months, if not longer, so the cause of the accident won’t be known definitively for quite some time. But as the nation’s immediate focus was on the loss of life, the tragedy also placed an urgent public safety challenge on the new administration to address. |
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The White House touched off two days of turmoil in Washington and around the country when the Office of Management and Budget issued a memo directing a freeze on most federal grants and loans. The intent was for the administration to get a handle on spending before moving forward with cuts. But the action led to widespread confusion and concern from nonprofits and other groups about an interruption of their operations, from Meals on Wheels to nursing facilities. Within a day of the memo’s release, a federal judge blocked the funding freeze. The White House then rescinded the memo but said the plans for a freeze would go forward eventually and wouldn’t touch individual benefits such as Social Security, Medicare or veterans’ benefits. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, called the reversal of the memo a “small victory” for Democrats, perhaps the first since Mr. Trump’s inauguration. Mr. Schumer should savor it, for it looks to be rare and short-lived. Mr. Trump signed an order directing the government to expand a detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hold up to 30,000 migrants, giving the government more space to help deport illegal immigrants who his administration is rounding up. “We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens,” Mr. Trump said. The president also signed the Laken Riley Act into law, giving the Department of Homeland Security more legal tools to take even relatively low-level criminal illegal immigrants off the streets. The bill is the first from the GOP-controlled Congress enacted into law and is the kickoff of the Trump agenda to crack down on border security. The law specifically orders Homeland Security to detain and speedily deport illegal immigrants who commit crimes. |
Trump Is Right: Obama FAA Policy Penalized 'High Aptitude' Applicants, Even Chicago Tribune Was Worried in 2021
Let’s disregard Pritzker claiming the buck stopped with Trump, blaming a president who had only been in office nine days for the crash. Apparently, Gov. Pritzker hasn’t been reading his hometown papers these past few years — because less than three years ago, the Chicago Tribune sounded the same warning about ATC readiness that the president did. The piece began with the story of Brittany Powers, an honors student from Lewis University who was passed over by the Federal Aviation Administration not because of her qualifications, but because its “biographical assessment” portion of the hiring process included “questions about how peers would describe the individual and the age at which the person started to earn money.” “It’s the result of an abrupt overhaul this year to the FAA’s air traffic controller hiring policy, which for almost 25 years gave preferred status to aviation graduates like Powers as well as former military controllers,” the Tribune reported. “Now, the FAA is conducting an off-the-street recruiting process for all candidates. It begins with the assessment, which is open to most people with a high school diploma.”
“Critics argue that the unproven strategy will cost millions of dollars and could complicate FAA attempts to replenish its workforce, erode passenger safety in the long term and increase travel delays, in part because an influx of aviation novices hired from among the general public would create more work for veteran controllers in an already high-stress job.” The report noted experts “also suggest that the policy appears quietly aimed at attracting more minorities and women to a workforce that is largely male and white, even though the FAA says the new policy is ‘blind on the issue of diversity, from start to finish.’” This is decidedly not what the FAA’s webpage said, going all the way back to 2013. “Diversity is integral to achieving FAA’s mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel across our nation and beyond,” the page read. “Because diversity is so critical, FAA actively supports and engages in a variety of associations, programs, coalitions and initiatives to support and accommodate employees from diverse communities and backgrounds. Our people are our strength, and we take great care in investing in and valuing them as such.” Furthermore, the FAA has stopped hiring controllers from its usual source, the Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiative — something that’s currently the source of a lawsuit which alleges the Obama administration overlooked roughly 1,000 qualified candidates because the pool wasn’t diverse enough.
The move away from the Collegiate Training Initiative, the Tribune noted, could lead to staffing shortages and create invisible hazards for fliers. “The Association of Collegiate Training Institutions, which represents the 36 U.S. air traffic control schools, said the new FAA hiring process will ‘jeopardize air traffic safety, cost millions of dollars more to implement and take longer to train a controller workforce that is already critically under-manned,’” the report stated. Also, as the Daily Signal noted in 2023, the implementation of the woke “biographical assessment” was even worse than it sounds on paper. “The assessment reportedly gives more points to applicants who have not been employed for the last three years than to an applicant who answers that he has been a pilot or a veteran with an air traffic control-related military background,” the outlet reported.
Rep. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican, noted that the “biographical assessment penalizes air traffic controller candidates who demonstrate a high aptitude in science. It’s insane. “Then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson also sounded the alarm about the policy in 2018.“Applicants who had been unemployed for the previous three years got more points than licensed pilots got. In other words, the FAA actively searched for unqualified air traffic controllers,” Carlson said. “That is insane. And they knew it was insane when they did it, but they did it anyway.” Thus, one can only conclude that Gov. Pritzker isn’t much of a reader or news-watcher — or he simply ignores inconvenient facts. Either one removes him from serious consideration in this matter, however. This isn’t to say that any of this played a role in the crash that claimed 67 lives on Wednesday night. But watering down air safety in the name of diversity will eventually end in tragedy if left unchecked — and a refusal to ask pertinent questions when they’re most needed will only ensure it happens sooner rather than later.
Donald Trump’s Star Wars: An ‘Iron Dome’ for the US
A U.S. version of “Iron Dome” would promise protection for all Americans and restore America’s ability to act strategically on the global stage.
December 27, 2024, 6:25 PM
Israel’s Iron Dome air defense missile launches (Hamara/Shutterstock)
Having spent much of my government career in the nuclear weapons community, I’ve watched with fascination as Donald Trump has called for the development and deployment of what he refers to as an “Iron Dome” missile defense shield to protect the whole of the United States. This is not some passing fancy, but something he brings up repeatedly, something that mattered enough for him to insist on its inclusion in this year’s Republican platform.
The incoming president’s reasoning, simply enough, is that if other countries can have such protection, then why can’t we? We are, after all, still the most scientifically capable nation on earth, at least when we set our minds to it. For what it’s worth, I think he’s absolutely right, and I think that this should be a major national security priority for the Trump presidency.
Is it feasible?
There have been, of course, many commentators who’ve observed, sometimes pungently, that it can’t work for us, that its radar coverage and missile response times are optimized for tiny Israel and cannot be scaled up to cover a continent-spanning nation. This seems to me a “strawman” argument. Trump clearly has something more in mind, a broadly-based research and development program for a system — or, more likely, a system of systems — capable of working on a much grander scale.
It’s reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), ridiculed in its time by pundits with the “Star Wars” tag, but in retrospect viewed more positively. However, limited in number, we do have anti-missile defense systems in place that would never have existed if these pundits had won the day. We may not be able to stop an all-out missile attack from Russia or China, but the systems in place might well suffice against the lesser capabilities of Kim Jong Urn’s North Korean regime — and that’s nothing trivial. Nor, at a tactical level, would we have the capability demonstrated by U.S. warships in the Red Sea to swat down repeated Houthi missile attacks.
At the same time, both the “Iron Dome” and our efforts to protect Red Sea shipping demonstrate that relying on missiles to destroy missiles is likely to become a technological dead end. If nothing else, anti-missile missiles, intended to hit small, fast-moving targets, require an expensive level of technical sophistication. Using them to shoot down cheaper, dumber missiles designed only to hit large objects — container ships, for example, or factories — is, in the long run, a losing proposition.
The experts I’m following these days seem focused more on, first, improving the sensor coverage that any large-scale system would require. With the overall improvement in space-based systems, this seems less a technical challenge than one of commitment of resources. Second, instead of relying on missiles to shoot down missiles, we should ramp up our focus on alternative weapons, perhaps lasers, or rail guns, or even non-nuclear EMP devices. Researching my upcoming novel, I’ve been quite overwhelmed by the progress that’s been made in the latter area, much of it in the realm of anti-drone systems, but potentially scalable to counter missiles.
Make no mistake, there’s nothing currently available that could be used to create an “Iron Dome”-like capability for the U.S. But tomorrow, with sufficiently focused and supported research, well, we might just surprise ourselves. After all, not so long ago the notion of recapturing space boosters and reusing them was dismissed as a technological pipe dream. Maybe while he’s getting us to Mars, Elon Musk might spare some thought to protecting us here on Earth.
Why does the U.S. need an “Iron Dome”?
But my purpose today is less about the “how” of creating something akin to an “Iron Dome” system to protect the U.S. and more about the “why.” Why should we devote significant resources, speculatively, to developing the capability Trump wants? The answer lies in the increasingly unstable nuclear deterrence environment, and the need to restore confidence in the U.S. nuclear “umbrella.”
The Ukraine war, and particularly Vladimir Putin’s insistent nuclear saber-rattling, has highlighted the extent to which, in Herman Kahn’s classic formulation, the “unthinkable” has become “thinkable” once again. In the bipolar strategic environment of the Cold War, a “balance of terror” kept nuclear weapons largely off the table. From Korea to Cuba to Berlin and Vietnam, neither the U.S. nor the Soviets wished to push confrontation to the point of inviting a nuclear response.
Now we’re not so sure, and, more importantly, both our allies and the various rogue actors now find themselves looking at nuclear scenarios other than the Cold War’s MAD, or “Mutually Assured Destruction.” North Korea’s increased support for Putin’s war in Ukraine quite likely has come in exchange for technical assistance to improve the range and accuracy of its own nuclear-tipped missiles. Even as its proxies in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza are defanged, Iran continues its covert pursuit of a nuclear capability —and here again, their support for Russia may yield nuclear program dividends. And China, with its rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal, lurks in the background. (RELATED: North Korea Is in the Fight)
This, in turn, has led U.S. friends and allies to reconsider the desirability of obtaining nuclear weapons — even Japan and Sweden, historically opposed to acquiring nuclear weapons, may now view things differently. Not for nothing do many Ukrainians regret that they gave up a huge nuclear arsenal in return for security assurances from the U.S., the U.K., and Russia. The entire nuclear non-proliferation edifice depended on faith in the U.S. willingness to put its nuclear muscle in the service of protecting NATO or Japan or South Korea. (READ MORE: Nuclear Weapons and US Allies)
No one believes in our assurances of protection any longer, despite pious words to the contrary. The distinction drawn between Ukraine and our “NATO allies” became (under Joe Biden) a polite fiction. We weren’t obligated to protect Ukraine, but of course we would spring into action if Putin invaded Poland or Estonia or any other NATO country, and, if Putin threatened nuclear escalation, then we’d escalate right back. R-i-i-i-ght! Of course, we would. No doubt about it. One can argue that Biden allowed himself to be too readily buffaloed by Putin’s nuclear threats, but one can’t object to the notion that Kansas City would never be risked to protect Kiev.
It may well be the case that our nuclear arsenal still suffices to keep Russia from emptying its silos against us, which begs the question of why would they do so? Even in the days of “advancing world Communism,” it was hard to see what the Soviets might gain from reducing the continental United States to a nuclear wasteland and inviting the same destruction upon themselves. But we couldn’t dismiss the threat, and nor could they. Today the very uncertainty that has been introduced, regardless of the source, means that the vectors for a nuclear exchange have become much more complicated.
Nuclear non-proliferation always depended more on U.S. steadfastness than it did upon speeches and handshakes at U.N.-sponsored shindigs. Restoring non-proliferation depends on recreating the belief that the U.S. cannot be trifled with, that rogue nuclear actors had best be prepared to face dire consequences if they messed with us or our friends.
Back in the day, the “Star Wars” critics argued that its goals were impossible and that, even if they could be achieved, the result would be to destroy the strategic balance of forces and destabilize the world. Instead, it forced Gorbachev to the realization that the Soviet Union lacked the resources to compete, a realization that led to the conference table, to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and to the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was the strategic pivot around which the Cold War was finally won. Those who ridiculed Ronald Reagan found themselves served a dish of crow, even if some refused petulantly to eat it.
It may well be that Trump’s proposed “Iron Dome” for the U.S. is beyond realization. It may be that it can only yield a temporary advantage, that potential adversaries will eventually find a way around it. But it also offers immense promise, not only the promise of protection for all Americans but also a restored freedom of strategic action for America in the world.
Let’s give it a chance.
James H. McGee worked for nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His recent novel is Letter of Reprisal.
FAA’s Obama-Era ‘Biographical Questionnaire’ for DEI Faces New Scrutiny After DC Crash
Fred Lucas | January 31, 2025|
Fred Lucas is chief news correspondent and manager of the Investigative Reporting Project for The Daily Signal. He is the author of “The Myth of Voter Suppression: The Left’s Assault on Clean Elections.” Send an email to Fred.
President Donald Trump on Thursday directed the Federal Aviation Administration to assess safety standards, including evaluating hiring practices, in the wake of the midair collision over Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday night.
The presidential memorandum comes after Trump suggested the military helicopter that crashed into an American Airlines regional jet may have been due in part to the FAA’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
All 67 people aboard the two aircraft were killed.
“President Trump swiftly signed a memorandum directing an immediate assessment of the Federal Aviation Administration to ensure the federal government is maintaining the highest personnel and policy aviation-safety standards,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
“The memorandum directs the secretary of transportation and the FAA administration to immediately review all hiring decisions and changes to safety protocols made during the prior four years, and to take all necessary corrective action to achieve uncompromised aviation safety,” Leavitt added. “The review will include a comprehensive assessment and reversal in any deterioration in hiring standards and aviation-safety standards and protocols during the previous administration.”
Trump already signed a governmentwide executive order to do away with DEI-related personnel initiatives.
As The Daily Signal previously reported, under President Barack Obama’s administration, the FAA scrapped a skills-based test and a certification program, and replaced it with a biographical questionnaire to attract more diverse applicants to become air traffic controllers. The FAA previously drew most candidates from the military and a group of 36 colleges that offer air traffic control programs.
“The Obama administration implemented a biographical questionnaire at the FAA to shift the hiring focus away from objective aptitude. During my first term, my administration raised standards to achieve the highest standards of safety and excellence,” the Trump memorandum says. “But the Biden administration egregiously rejected merit-based hiring, requiring all executive departments and agencies to implement dangerous ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ tactics, and specifically recruiting individuals with ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities in the FAA.”
The memorandum continues: “On my second day in office, I ordered an immediate return to merit-based recruitment, hiring, and promotion, elevating safety and ability as the paramount standard. [Wednesday’s] devastating accident tragically underscores the need to elevate safety and competence as the priority of the FAA.”
Critics have said the policy that originated under Obama and was revived by former President Joe Biden gives more points to applicants who have not been employed for the past three years than to an applicant who has been a pilot or a veteran with an air traffic control-related military background. During his first term, Trump discarded the policy in 2018, but Biden reinstated it.
“When you are flying on an airplane with your loved ones—which everyone of us in this room has—do you pray that your plane lands safely and gets you to your destination?” Leavitt asked reporters rhetorically on Friday. “Or do you pray that the pilot has a certain skin color? I think we all know the answer to that question. As President Trump said yesterday, it’s common sense.”
The spokeswoman said the Trump administration still believes it is safe to fly in the United States. Still, she said, the memorandum is intended to “deliver accountability.” Democrats were angry after Trump suggested DEI played a role in the deadly air collision. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Trump’s comment was “shameful” and promoted “misinformation and misdirection.”
During Leavitt’s Friday briefing, Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked, “Was the air traffic controller in the [airport] tower on Wednesday night hired, or not fired, at some point, because of his or her race? “Leavitt said only that the “investigation is ongoing. ”When we have updates on the exact individuals who were involved in the collision, including the air traffic controller and the pilots of the helicopter and others, we will confirm those,” the spokeswoman said.
But she added, “The president has rightfully pointed out that there have been problems with the aviation industry over the past several years. This started under Barack Obama in 2014.”In 2019, the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a nonprofit public interest law firm, filed a class-action lawsuit against the FAA on behalf of 2,500 aspiring air traffic controllers who claimed to be harmed by the policy change.
“If you are an American who has spent many years studying aviation, and you graduate from school and are an air traffic controller based on skill and merit; you fill out a biographical questionnaire asking you the color of your skin and asking you where you are from, and details that aren’t relevant at all to the job description, I think that deteriorates the morale of people in this industry,” Leavitt said.
“If you talk to people in this industry, they will tell you that. In fact, many of them filed a lawsuit against the FAA a couple of years ago under Joe Biden’s administration because they were denied positions because of this DEI hiring practice that was putting identity politics over merit and skills,” she added.
Is America Measuring Up on Math, Reading?
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Peter Huessy is a Member of the Montgomery County Republican Central Committee. Since 1981 he has been President of Geo-Strategic Analysis of Potomac, Maryland. He was a former special assistant to the Secretary of the Interior and consultant to the US Air Force. He can be reached at [email protected]