Why would the bongs help out the scotch? Thought they were mortal enemies.
Citizen Free Press
@CitizenFreePres
'Zelensky, by the way, I see he's trying to back out of the rare earth deal — and if he does that, he's got some problems, big, big problems.'
https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1906539266554925373
Republican headquarters in Albuquerque firebombed
A fire damaged the entryway at the Republican Party of New Mexico’s Albuquerque headquarters early Sunday, which the party called “a deliberate act of arson.”
The words “ICE=KKK” were spray-painted on the building, the party said in a media release posted to X. No one was hurt in the fire, it said, and law enforcement is investigating.
“This horrific attack, fueled by hatred and intolerance, is a direct assault on our values, freedoms, and our right to political expression,” it said. “This is not an isolated incident. It is part of a disturbing pattern of politically motivated violence that has plagued our country — fueled in part by the silence and implicit encouragement from progressive leaders who refuse to condemn these acts.”
The fire comes amid protests against moves by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the Republican Trump administration to deport migrants. The FBI has also created a task force to “crack down on violent Tesla attacks” after vandalism and acts of violence aimed at the electric car manufacturer, whose CEO, Elon Musk, is leading President Donald Trump’s efforts to downsize the federal government workforce.
Albuquerque Fire Rescue said it was dispatched to the San Francisco Road address just before 6 a.m. for a reported structure fire.
“The fire was brought under control within 5 minutes of their arrival. The structure suffered damage to the front entryway and smoke damage throughout the building. No injuries to civilians or firefighters were reported,” it said on Facebook.
Fire officials are investigating alongside teams from the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, it said.
The chairwoman of the Republican Party of New Mexico, Amy Barela, said the group is working alongside investigators and will “not be silenced.”
“We are deeply relieved that no one was harmed in what could have been a tragic and deadly attack. Those who resort to violence to undermine our state and nation must be held accountable, and our state leaders must reinforce through decisive action that these cowardly attacks will not be tolerated,” Barela said.
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller issued a statement condemning any potential arson.
“We do not yet know the full details of the fire early this morning at the Republican Party’s headquarters, but let me be clear, arson is a violent and cowardly act that has no place in our city,” Keller said in Sunday’s statement. “Politically motivated crimes of any kind are unacceptable, and I am grateful to our fire department for their swift response.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fire-republican-party-mexico-hq-201641064.html
Trump unleashes the crossfire hurricane
The Schiff is about to hit the fan. The White House tweeted with video, “President Trump signs a Presidential Memorandum requiring the immediate declassification of all FBI files relating to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”
The operation’s title is a nod to Jumpin’ Jack Flash, a song by Trump’s favorite group, the Rolling Stones. Bureaucrats spend a lot of time amusing themselves.
Lawyer Rogan O'Handley (as DC_Draino) tweeted, “President Trump just declassified all Crossfire Hurricane documents.
“This is huge.
“The entire ‘Russia, Russia!’ hoax that led to the FBI illegally spying on a sitting President is about to be exposed.
“This is why he removed secret clearances from Hillary and her friends.
“He’s going after them.”
President Trump has no choice. Last time, he didn’t and they paid his civility—OK, inability to do so—with 91 indictments, a raid on his home, a mugshot and kangaroo court civil lawsuits to try to break him.
This time, Trump’s ducks are lining up.
His attorney general, Pam Bondi, may disappoint some readers with being slow to prosecute and lightning fast to a microphone, but criminal cases take time to develop—lies must die a quick death. She earned Trump’s trust just like he’s earned ours.
Kash Patel is the key. We know this because only Pete Hegseth had a tougher time winning confirmation. Give Kash credit because he’s proved his loyalty under fire.
Jonah Goldberg once advised me to never read the comments, so I always try to.
Some Random Guy tweeted in response to DC Draino, “Just a reminder that Kevin Clinesmith, the FBI attorney who pleaded guilty to lying to the FISA court, only got 12 months of probation and 400 hours of community service. Guess who the judge was?”
I checked the tweet out. I got this from Politico:
Clinesmith insisted that he thought the statement was true at the time and only altered the message to save himself the hassle of procuring another email from the CIA. Prosecutors contested that claim, arguing that the FBI lawyer intended to mislead his colleague, but Boasberg sided with the defense on that point.
“My view of the evidence is that Mr. Clinesmith likely believed that what he said about Mr. Page was true,” Boasberg said. “By altering the email, he was saving himself some work and taking an inappropriate shortcut.”
While Trump and his GOP allies have suggested that Clinesmith was engaged in a political vendetta against Trump, Boasberg noted that a Justice Department inspector general investigation failed to establish that political considerations played a role in Clinesmith’s actions or numerous other errors and omissions that impacted filings with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Well, if Sergeant Schultz saw nothing, nothing happened. Judge Doom Boasberg’s personal rule on evidence holds that it is OK to alter evidence if it saves time.
The story also said, “While prosecutors urged the judge to send Clinesmith to prison to send a message to others in government not to try something similar, Boasberg said he believed that message had already been sent.”
Oh the message was sent, which was go do the crime because you won’t do the time. He got community service for his felony and states no longer automatically disbar felons, even if they tampered with evidence.
I mention this to point out just what President Trump faces as he takes on the rich men north of Richmond.
Like Don Corleone, they own the judges and Justice Roberts, who appointed Boasberg as the chief of the secret FISA courts which gave Obama and Hillary 17 warrants to spy on their top political opponent. Who knows how many warrants FISA gave Democrats and the FBI to spy on opponents?
Maybe Kash Patel knows now. Maybe the FBI’s industrial-strength shredder does. If the evidence is there, Trump has it.
Now readers may have noticed my silence about the opening of the Kennedy files. It is the past and we cannot change it. But Malone News posted, the opening argument in the “Trial Of Lyndon B. Johnson for Assassination of his President,” which included:
We will prove that one Malcolm Wallace had been Johnson’s hatchet man in deaths that furthered the political career of the ruthless Texas politician. Wallace had received government positions at Johnson’s behest despite being a convicted murderer who was represented by Johnson’s attorney. Some homicides that benefitted or protected Johnson have been directly tied to Wallace.
In what should have been the most revealing clue for investigators, the only latent fingerprint found on the 6th floor of the Dallas book depository claimed to be the sniper’s nest, belonged to Malcolm Wallace. This critical information has been ignored until this trial.
Given the recent track record of conspiracy theories, after 62 years of believing the lone gunman conclusion, I am seeing things differently.
Ancient history, though, but what we can learn is that crimes by a president unpunished become crimes by a future president. LBJ’s war destroyed the communist wing of the Democrat Party, but 40 years after his departure from the Oval Office in disgrace, Obama assumed the presidency.
Trump must make Obama pay. The press knows Trump now holds the cards on Russiagate, which should lead to the imprisonment of many who served the 44th president, and so the news media is distracting its ever shrinking audience.
The Free Press reported, “On Monday, Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that National Security Adviser Michael Waltz had included him in an encrypted group chat to discuss war plans for striking Houthi targets in Yemen. It didn’t take long for the blame games to begin.”
Goldberg is a known liar and the president is ignoring him.
The Free Press bitched, “While Signalgate has been grist for an ideological fight within Trump’s coalition, it speaks volumes that it seems the incompetence and carelessness displayed by Trump’s cabinet will, for now, go unpunished.”
Does any reader care about Goldberg?
The bombing went ahead despite Goldberg’s claim that Trump stole nuclear codes. Oh wait. That was what Drudge falsely claimed to rationalize the Raid on Mar-a-Lago by FBI agents given a license to kill (use deadly force) by Merrick “Boasberg With A Badge” Garland.
After a while, all these lies about Trump blur into one big glob.
Kash Patel is about to make the swamp water in the FBI crystal clear.
Trump, meanwhile, is not playing around. The Paul Weiss law firm was knee-deep in the hoopla of the Alvin Bragg prosecution of Trump. The ability to call Trump a convicted felon cost Paul Weiss its government privileges, which is devastating to a white shoe law firm.
Brad Karp, the firm’s chairman, wrote, “We waited for firms to support us in the wake of the president’s executive order. Disappointingly, far from support, we learned that certain other firms were seeking to exploit our vulnerabilities by aggressively soliciting our clients and recruiting our attorneys.”
Thank you, NYT, for your story, “Rivals Pounce on Paul Weiss, a Top Law Firm, After Trump’s Order.” It had me cackling like Kamala on a bender. The firm capitulated, locking its barn door after a couple of studs fled.
Trump is gathering evidence and lawyers to punish the Russiagate conspirator.
But he will need help in the very mainstream media that I mock so often. That is where Jeff Bezos comes in. He now owns the Washington Post, which Mark Felt used to bring Nixon down in Watergate. Felt was J. Edgar’s handpicked successor who Nixon passed over as director when Hoover died.
Bezos can go a long way toward making Russiagate prosecutions palatable to the masses. It may take a miracle to do so but as Al Michaels once asked, :Do you believe in miracles?”
I do. We all saw one on July 13. The Lord didn’t spare Trump just to be another Jerry Ford.
As Mick Jagger sang:
I was drowned, I was washed up and left for dead
I fell down to my feet and I saw they bled
Yeah, yeah
I frowned at the crumbs of a crust of bread
Yeah, yeah, yeah
I was crowned with a spike right through my head
My, my, yeah
But it’s all right now, in fact it’s a gas
But it’s all right, I’m Jumpin’ Jack Flash
It’s a gas, gas, gas
https://donsurber.substack.com/p/trump-unleashes-the-crossfire-hurricane
ThePersistence
@ScottPresler
I mean this very respectfully & lovingly,
but I’m watching very closely to see which conservative accounts are NOT posting about Brad Schimel in Wisconsin.
Every Republican in America should be discussing the election on Tuesday.
https://x.com/ScottPresler/status/1905969892165099680
Marla Maples gets emotional discussing assassination attempt on her former husband President Trump.
https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1905885014258049030
Local #TeslaTakedown reveals ‘grassroots’ protests are AstroTurf
Shouts rang out last Saturday at the Tesla dealership on Tyco Road in Tysons, as they have across the country since late February when fiery #TeslaTakedown protests started targeting Tesla founder Elon Musk for his work in the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
“Recall Elon!”
“People over profits!”
A man shouted into a bullhorn: “Tell me what democracy looks like.”
The crowd responded, “This is what democracy looks like.”
But as the man juggled an anti-Elon sign, his bullhorn and a script with pre-written chants, the Tyco Road protest, its organizers, and its participants revealed a broader story about the #TeslaTakedown events popping up nationwide: the AstroTurf nature of the multimillion-dollar professional protest industry, with the footprints of two behemoth enterprises, a $12.6 million political nonprofit, the Indivisible Project, and the Democratic Party. While local chapters of the Democratic Party have put their names to only a small percentage of the protests, their direct involvement is important because it underscores the partisan motivation behind some of the protests.
While the local #TeslaTakedown protest may appear spontaneous and community-driven, it is the product of a well-funded, tightly coordinated campaign led by national political organizations like the Indivisible Project, MoveOn.org, and professional protest firms. These groups use digital platforms, pre-scripted chants, pre-printed signs, and nationwide toolkits to manufacture the appearance of grassroots activism, and the messages on Tyco Road mirror the language of protests nationwide. This kind of organizing is known as “AstroTurfing”—a term used to describe top-down efforts that mimic authentic, bottom-up civic engagement.
Critics say these operations mislead the public, distort the media narrative, and erode trust in genuine democratic movements by masking partisan objectives behind a veneer of local outrage.
A protester had parked a wagon nearby with a sign, “Poster lending library.”
Coordinated Professional Protest Network
Earlier this month, MSNBC host Chris Hayes touted the “organic, bottom-up movement.” But details from the Tyco Road protest underscore that the “movement” was a staged partisan political action campaign led by Democratic Party political operatives, multimillion-dollar organizations enjoying 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofit status, and professional protest companies that specialize in “direct action.”
The Fairfax County Times and the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative, created a chronology of the protest actions, building a public database of anti-Tesla protests published online on ActionAlert.com and Mobilize.us, which support the Democratic Party. According to internet records, someone anonymously purchased TeslaTakedown.com on Feb. 12. As of March 25 at 11 a.m., the database currently includes 304 published events and will be regularly updated.
According to the data:
Groups and individuals allied with the Democratic Party have organized 100% of the protests.
Only about 15 organizations and their affiliates are behind all of the protests.
Groups involved in the #TeslaTakedown protests have combined revenues of at least $43.1 million.
Troublemakers, a Seattle-based professional protest organization, and the Disruption Project, a Philadelphia group that describes itself as “dedicated to supporting uprisings, resistance, and mass direct action,” have sponsored about 70%, or 220, of the protests.
The Indivisible Project has organized at least about 29%, or 87, of the protests.
Local Democratic Party chapters have organized some protests, including members' participation in the Fairfax County protest.
Other Democratic organizations have sponsored protests, including the AFL-CIO, MoveOn.org, Swing Left, Third Act Initiative Inc., the Democratic Socialists of America, the Fight Oligarchy Club, 50501, and Tax Reformers LLC, which organize under the platform TaxElon.us.
Third Act Initiative Inc., a Madison Avenue political nonprofit based in New York City, promoted the Tyco Road protest through its local “Rocking Chair Rebellion” chapter. It organized people aged 60 and over and promoted the protest with a call to action that said, “Hurting Tesla is stopping Musk.” For most people, the sight of senior citizens and retirees protesting seems organic and grassroots but the reality is they are part of a highly-funded and lucrative political operation. According to its 2023 tax filing, Third Act Inititative Inc. has revenues of $2 million.
At the Tyco Road protest, the local connection to the Indivisible Protect became apparent a few minutes into the protest with the arrival of Marianne Burke, a local Democratic activist and leader of “Fairfax Indivisible.” Juggling a large American flag on a pole with a smaller blue-and-yellow flag of Ukraine, Burke recently promoted an anti-Trump protest organized by the Indivisible Project and MoveOn.org, writing: “Meet at the Treasury building at 5pm.”
Soon after Burke unfurled her flags, her friend, Vanessa Hall, another local Democratic activist who has fundraised donations for the Fairfax Democrats, arrived. Burke and Hall co-founded a 501(c)(4) political nonprofit, “4 Public Education,” to support the all-Democratic Fairfax County school board.
Burke and Hall refused to comment. In fact, on the sidewalk by a sign for Papa John's, Hall slapped the camera phone of a Fairfax County Times reporter to block filming.
Within minutes, two anti-Musk protestors rushed over, one of them calling the Fairfax County Times reporter a “piece of s**t” and “pathetic,” before saying about the reporter, “I don’t even know where the hell she’s from, where she was born,” as the other man, wearing a blue “Dump Trump” baseball cap, told the reporter, “You’re an idiot.”
Indeed, in its 2023 IRS tax filing, Indivisible Project's mission is to “cultivate and lift up a grassroots movement of local groups to defeat the Trump agenda.” Led by married cofounders Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg, both living in the D.C. area, Indivisible Project boasted revenues of $12.6 million, with $8.6 million spent on salaries.
Levin bragged that Indivisible Project used “activists who hold the organizing and mobilization savvy to execute inside-outside strategies that help achieve our goals.” Levin added, “The organization seized key moments to shape the public discourse around MAGA extremism,” providing “direct funding” to “help local groups organize in-person events.”
Officials at the Indivisible Project and other organizations involved in the protests didn’t return requests for comment.
Partisan Financial Machine Behind #TeslaTakedown
The influence of Indivisible and the Democratic Party is evident in protests nationwide, but the details of the protests don’t immediately reveal the organizers.
In Ann Arbor, Mich., “Wendy for Good Government” is the organizer for protests against Musk at the Tesla dealership on Jackson Road, but a closer look reveals the true organizers. A local Sun Times News article from a Feb. 27 protest names the organizer, “Ann Arbor Indivisible.”
On March 3, New York Indivisible promoted a noisy video from a “TESLA TAKEDOWN” protest at the Tesla dealership in Manhattan, noting eight members of “Rise and Resist” were arrested at their “peaceful protest.” One of the women arrested wore a shirt that read, “ABOLISH CAPITALISM.”
On its Facebook page, Indivisible Virginia promoted a #TeslaTakedown protest at the Tesla dealership on N. Military Highway in Norfolk. It offered “Some ideas for signs,” including smears against Musk and Tesla. “BOYCOTT SWASTI-KARS!” “SEND ELON TO MARS - NOW!” “NO MUSK RATS!” “HONK IF YOU HATE NAZIS!”
In Fairfax County, protestors held signs with messages from the same script, one showing Trump and Musk kissing with the message, “Putin’s Puppets. Fire Musk-Rat.” Another read, “Don’t buy Nazi cars.” Yet another delivered the space theme: “Deport Musk to Mars!” Another with the theme of cueing up drivers to express their support: “Honk if you hate fascism.”
According to internet records, on March 8, one of these protest organizations bought BetterThanATesla.com to promote the message of “don’t buy” Tesla cars.
Indivisible Virginia shared an article from the Patch media platform, which quoted Christopher Ambrose “of Fairfax County,” saying he was demonstrating for the second time in three weeks on March 15 against the “unlawful takeover” of the government. It didn’t mention that Ambrose is a “long-time Fairfax Democratic activist,” as BlueVirginia, a media platform promoting the Virginia Democratic Party, describes him. Ambrose is a former vice-chair of finance with the Fairfax County Democratic Committee and a former member of the Democratic Party of Virginia Central Committee.
In Pennsylvania, a March 21 protest in Mechanicsburg was described by local media as a gathering of “concerned citizens,” with activist Susan Roller quoted as representing “PA’s 10th District Network.” But, as with so many of these demonstrations, the organizing group is simply a local Indivisible chapter of the larger Indivisible operation.
On March 22, as protestors gathered in Tysons, the Connecticut Post wrote that the Tesla dealership on Boston Post Road in Milford, Conn., had become an “organic target for protest,” but the organizers were actually Indivisible Amity, a chapter of the national organization outside New Haven, Conn. They followed the recommended script for other Indivisible protests, with the same protest sign, “DOGE is a criminal enterprise,” that popped up at the Tyco Road protest in Tysons.
Indivisible has set its sights on the next big protest day: March 29. Troublemakers, the Seattle company behind a bulk of protests, sent an email to subscribers this week, touting a “goal of 500 global protests on the same day,” March 29, “teaming up again” with Indivisible and “Seattle DSA,” the acronym for Democratic Socialists of America.
In addition, its leaders have organized April 5 “Hands Off!” “National Day of Action” protests. Indivisible uploaded a “Hands Off! Mobilization from Indivisible Digital Asset Management,” with premade graphics, templates, “Flyers, Rally Signs, & Printed Materials,” and a Google Doc “Toolkit for Hosts.” In a mailing this week, Indivisible’s Levin told supporters the protests now number “more than 600 local events planned.” The mega-Democratic group, MoveOn.org, plans a “Hands Off: De-escalation Training” on April 2.
Protests are also planned again on Tyco Road in Tysons. During the protest this past Saturday, a steady stream of prospective buyers walked through the doors of the Tesla dealership, one man shouting at the protestors, “I’m buying two Teslas today because of you!”
https://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/local-teslatakedown-reveals-grassroots-protests-are-astroturf/article_1c368d4d-708c-4074-b5fa-5eaf6a32ea97.html
Benny Johnson
@bennyjohnson
Lmao. Elon Musk came out on stage wearing a cheese hat at his Town Hall in Wisconsin.
https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1906509208360546607
Who is behind the Tesla protests?
Good dig on who is funding the Tesla protests.
https://asrainvestigates.substack.com/p/who-is-behind-the-tesla-protests
London atm.
Natalie Winters
@nataliegwinters
Fired Kennedy Center President DEFENDS hosting multiple drag shows (and compares them to Shakespeare)!
https://x.com/nataliegwinters/status/1906387776783646886
Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸
@KarluskaP
Peter Navarro- Trust Trump- White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro joins ‘Fox News Sunday’ to discuss the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and bringing the auto industry back to the United States on a larger scale.
https://x.com/KarluskaP/status/1906386259087376827
Don't forget to go check out some Cherry Blossoms blossoming. Can only see it for 1-2 weeks out of the entire year around last week of March through first week of April.
Investigators uncover 15,214 near miss events at DC National airport in just 3 years
Family members of some of the 67 people killed in January’s midair collision in Washington listened to the US Army and Federal Aviation Administration take fiery questions from lawmakers for the first time Thursday at a Senate subcommittee hearing on the preliminary findings of the accident.
“I’m glad that something’s being done about it now,” said Dailey Crafton, whose brother, Casey, was killed. “But you know, it’s too little, too late for those of us who had family members on that plane.”
The Senate hearing came two weeks after the National Transportation Safety Board, whose chair also testified Thursday, unveiled its preliminary report on the fatal collision between the American Airlines regional jet and an Army Blackhawk helicopter at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. It was the first major aviation accident in the United States in nearly 20 years. The NTSB issued two urgent safety recommendations with the report, which the FAA adopted rapidly.
“(The FAA and Army) have been very cooperative with our investigation,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters following the hearing. “We’re working closely. It’s a pretty broad investigation. It’s a very complex investigation.”
Previously, investigators uncovered 15,214 “near miss events” between 2021 and 2024 where aircraft were within one nautical mile of each other, with a vertical separation of less than 400 feet. There were also 85 cases where aircraft were less than 1,500 feet apart, with a vertical separation of less than 200 feet, according to the NTSB.
‘Clearly something was missed’
The findings revealed a “systemic issue,” that lawmakers are demanding answers on, said Sen. Maria Cantwell, ranking member of the Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation committee.
“I want to know, why did the FAA not act?,” Cantwell said. “Why did the FAA not act on 15,000 reports of dangerous proximity? How were these helicopter routes allowed to remain when alarm bells were literally going off in the towers?”
FAA Acting Administrator Chris Rocheleau responded he was “very concerned” about what’s been learned so far.
“Clearly something was missed,” he said.
The FAA acted following the release of the report to adopt NTSB recommendations to close the flight path the helicopter was using at the time of the collision.
Following the hearing, CNN’s Pete Muntean questioned Homendy on whether allowing the route to exist was a failure of oversight by the FAA.
“I wouldn’t just put that on the FAA,” Homendy said. “I’d also put that on the Army. The Army also has to monitor their own helicopters. They also have to figure out a way to monitor close proximity events and get that information and determine when their helicopters are exceeding maximum altitude.”
Among those in the crowd was Tim Lilley, father of Sam Lilley, the first officer who was killed while flying the PSA Airlines flight on January 29. Tim flew Black Hawk helicopters for the US Army for 20 years and flew the helicopter routes “hundreds of times,” but never had an aircraft on approach when flying.
“It’s apparent that the administration gets it,” Lilley said. “They’re acting. They’re acting quickly … The army, they need to take that same action. There are things that could be done and could have been done already in the last two months that still need to get done.”
“I think that my son’s legacy is to get some things done to make sure that this doesn’t happen again,” Lilley said.
American Airlines said in a statement it continues to “mourn the lives lost in the traffic accident.”
“We’re grateful for the NTSB’s urgent safety recommendations to restrict helicopter traffic near DCA and for Secretary Duffy and the FAA’s quick adoption of those recommendations,” the statement read. “We will continue to coordinate closely with PSA Airlines as it cooperates with the NTSB as a party to the investigation.”
FAA makes aircraft surveillance technology required at DCA
Among the testimony came a commitment from the FAA that the agency will require nearly all aircraft near Reagan Airport to use an automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast out system, known as ADS-B.
“All aircraft operating in DCA class B airspace will be required to broadcast their position and identification using ADS-B Out with very limited exceptions,” Rocheleau testified.
Civilian and military aircraft use ADS-B, which helps an aircraft broadcast its location, altitude and other key factors while monitoring other aircraft around it. But the Army often turned it off while flying on missions in Washington.
The NTSB previously confirmed the helicopter had the necessary equipment and was capable of transmitting, but investigators are still unclear why it was not transmitting.
Brig. General Matthew Braman also testified during the hearing the status of the operation and functionality of the helicopter’s ADS-B Out was still under investigation, but said the crew was approved to operate with ADS-B Out off, in accordance with Army policy.
Lawmakers also grilled the Army for still flying training missions after the crash near Reagan Airport with the technology turned off.
“I find that shocking and deeply unacceptable and I want to encourage the Army right now to revisit that policy and to revisit that policy today,” Sen. Ted Cruz said at Thursday’s Senate subcommittee hearing.
The Army, however, often turns ADS-B off when flying around Washington DC – including when in the airspace around DCA, the Army acknowledged.
Cruz also pushed for the Army to hand over a memo from August entitled, “ADS-B Out off Operations in the National Airspace,” stating the Army hadn’t given him the memo when his staff asked, but Braman wouldn’t commit to providing it.
“If it is not provided to this committee within 24 hours, I am confident that you will have a senior commanding officer give you a direct order to provide that memo to this committee,” Cruz said. “I just want to underscore; there’s no reason the Army has to wait for the conclusion of the NTSB report to revisit your policy on ADS-B out. You can do so right now.”
Rocheleau also said the FAA is reviewing helicopter operations with machine learning and language modeling to scan incident reports and explore data sources.
“We’re also continuing to analyze other airports that have both established helicopter routes and nearby airplane traffic,” he said. “I will establish a safety risk management panel and engage with aviation stakeholders to identify additional hazard areas involving helicopter and fixed wing interactions.”
Homendy told reporters the data will show “the next big accident.” When asked whether she was confident in machine learning and artificial intelligence, Homendy said, “We’ll see.”
Secret Service and Navy caused false alerts for pilots this month
The FAA also confirmed Thursday that collision warnings in commercial planes landing earlier this month at Reagan Airport were caused by testing of anti-drone system by the US Navy and Secret Service.
The mysterious warnings were reported around March 1 and occurred only miles from the site of the January accident.
“We were about 1200 feet, there was somebody diving straight onto us,” one of the pilots who got the warning told control tower at the time, according to audio captured by LiveATC.net.
Several flight crews reported the mystery alerts on their Traffic Collision Avoidance System, known as TCAS, “indicating another aircraft was nearby when no other aircraft were in the area,” the FAA said in a statement at the time.
“Apparently, the Navy was using the same spectrum band as TCAS, causing the interference and faulty resolution advisories,” Cruz told the FAA during the hearing. “Even though the FAA had previously warned the Navy and the Secret Service against using that specific spectrum band due to interference risks.”
“Yes, sir, that’s correct,” Rocheleau responded.
“This is deeply disturbing that just a month after 67 people died while an approach to DCA that the Secret Service and Pentagon would inadvertently cause multiple flights to receive urgent cockpit alerts recommending evasive action,” Cruz said. “It is inappropriate for such testing to occur at DCA, given the facts of what occurred.”
Families demand answers and action
As for the family members of the 67 people killed in January’s mid-air collision, this investigation hasn’t gotten any easier. Lilley told reporters he wants answers and action.
“The hardest day of my life was the 29th,” Lilley said. “The second-hardest day was the day after that, when the NTSB told us about our loved ones spread across the ice. What keeps us moving forward is that we’re going to ensure that no other family has to go through what we’re what we’ve had to go through.”
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/27/us/washington-midair-collision-senate-hearing-army-faa/index.html?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc
Jackson Hewitt caught teaching illegal aliens nationwide how to get $14,000 in tax refunds, without working
https://x.com/sav_says_/status/1906092627919012115
Birthright Citizenship debate continues: 1866 Civil Rights Act
https://x.com/AnnCoulter/status/1906158730816688453
Jesse Watters
@JesseBWatters
FOX NEWS ALERT: Leonel Moreno, AKA: the free-loading Venezuelan Welfare King has been deported. We told you about Moreno last year when he was trying to become a migrant influencer by mocking Americans while living large off the government dole. I hope you enjoyed the
@JoeBiden
bucks while they lasted. And that's not all, Leonel apparently caused a scene on the flight back to Venezuela and officials had to move him to his own section of the plane with extra security. I assume there was no in-flight movie, either. Adios, amigo!
https://x.com/JesseBWatters/status/1905788744285757637
Reid Rasner, a Wyoming billionaire, is offering $47.45 billion to buy TikTok
Under the Biden administration, Congress passed legislation forcing ByteDance to either sell off TikTok or cease operations within the United States. Reid Rasner, a Wyoming billionaire is offering $47.45 billion.
s the deadline for ByteDance to divest from social media platform TikTok approaches, the current highest bidder is a stalwart Donald Trump ally with big dreams of revolutionizing social media and the user data trade.
Under the Biden administration, Congress passed legislation forcing ByteDance to either sell off TikTok or cease operations within the United States.
Though Trump attempted to ban the app during his first term, he has since pivoted to trying to save it and extended the deadline for 75 days.
He may have found a partner in Reid Rasner, a Wyoming billionaire whose bid for the platform has overshadowed Elon Musk’s own $44 billion purchase of Twitter. Rasner, for his part, has put forward a $47.45 billion offer that the Trump administration has reviewed, according to NBC News.
“We're nearly $50 billion- $20 billion more than any bid out there. So we are the highest bid at the table,” Rasner said this week on the “Just the News, No Noise” television show. “Not only that, we're delivering a massive, 100 day win for President Trump by creating the sovereign wealth fund. We are donating 5% of our TikTok bid, 5% of $50 billion to the sovereign wealth fund.”
Rasner further highlighted that his bid would offer the United States government the ability to buy into the platform at the $50 billion valuation sum, saying “even if it's worth $100 billion or a trillion dollars, like President Trump says, the United States government can take a larger stake in TikTok, if they'd like, and increase their shares in the sovereign wealth fund.”
Trump signed an executive order early in his term to create a sovereign wealth fund for the United States. Essentially a colossal investment portfolio, such funds are usually aimed at maximizing long-term gains.
Over the finish line
Rasner’s bid has not yet been approved, but he may secure ownership of the platform largely due to the size of his bid. The current deadline for the platform to sell stands at April 5. The Wyoming billionaire insisted he was working to make sure that ByteDance would be satisfied with his terms and follow through on the sale.
“So I want to make sure that ByteDance has a fair offer on the table to accept, and I want to make sure they walk away happy,” he said. “I want to make sure the American people are happy with what's happening. And I want to make sure that President Trump, above all else, is happy with what's happening.”
“One, it's a great value for the company,” Rasner said. “We get to protect a national security risk right now with the data and how it's being leveraged against Americans and used against Americans, not only that, but we get to revolutionize an entire industry.”
Data security was the motivation
The primary motivation for the TikTok ban was the threat of Chinese surveillance of Americans and collection of user data. While the ByteDance sale would largely alleviate the concerns of bad actors working with Beijing, Rasner has floated an idea unique to his bid to address the data collection from users.
“As far as the data is concerned, people on Facebook, on Twitter and X, wherever you are, you're giving your data away for free. That happens no longer,” he vowed. “We are going to revolutionize social media, and it will never be the same again, because you're going to be able to opt-in to give us your data, and when you do that, you're going to receive a payment for us using your data.”
“Our offer is truly the America First offer, and we're excited to be part of this,” he insisted. “We're excited to be one of the finalists, and we're excited to deliver a huge win to President Trump and the America First offer on the table, and bring this app to America. This is an exciting time for everyone.”
“Rather than letting these massive Silicon Valley big tech giants own them and large countries own it, we're going to let the users own it and let them monetize it,” he went on. “That's so important to us, but truly, it's a national security play.”
Bipartisan win or a Trump victory?
Rasner conceded that a successful purchase would prove a victory for Trump, by allowing him to claim he saved the platform and still addressed the security issues. But he further opined that Democrats would be on board with the efforts, including the investment with the sovereign wealth fund, due to the long-term benefits to the American people.
"President Trump gets the win. America wins. So Democrats can't complain about that,” he said. “America wins with a sovereign wealth fund, and it truly starts making money and becoming a massive investment vehicle for America. I can't understand how anyone would be against America, winning Americans, winning Americans being safer. So I don't think that this is a partisan issue.”
“I believe that Democrats and Republicans alike can get behind us, and it's a win-win situation,” he went on. “We're doing this for Americans… We get thousands of emails and messages from people excited about what's happening and how they can monetize and own their data. So I don't think it's a partisan issue, and I think Democrats are going to love the platform just as much as Republicans, and I look forward to sending their paychecks to them, too.”
Other bids
Rasner’s bid is not strictly unique in that other parties have also floated a government stake in the platform. Perplexity AI in late January floated a plan that would merge the companies and permit the U.S. government to claim 50% of the firm. In March, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian joined with Project Liberty’s Frank McCourt in his bid to purchase the platform. YouTuber "Mr. Beast" has also discussed a bid, as has former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.
James Stephen Donaldson, the man behind the "Mr. Beast" personality, is making his effort as part of a broader coalition that also included Employer.com CEO Jesse Tinsley. “We’ve put together a very strong offer and we’re excited to have him,” Tinsley told Fox Business in February. “This is a group of some of the best minds in America.”0
https://justthenews.com/nation/technology/wkdtiktoks-highest-bidder-also-its-most-pro-trump