January 31, 2025 ❧ A plane crash in D.C., the IMF extorts Zimbabwe, and Trump sending deportees to Guantanamo 

Plus: Whole Foods gets a union, hearings for Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr, a huge green energy project, and Serbian donkey cheese

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CROOKS vs. SICKOS (Or, “What are our politicians and oligarchs up to?”)

❧ As you’re probably aware by now, an American Airlines passenger jet collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter over Washington D.C. on Wednesday night, killing 67 people. As of Friday morning, bodies are still being recovered, but it is believed that nobody on board either the plane or the helicopter survived the crash. President Trump has already rushed to blame “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and disability hiring policies for the crash, even though he could not cite any evidence that they were the cause and the person at fault has not even been identified yet. Nevertheless, when asked why he was so sure DEI caused the crash, he said “It just could have been…Because I have common sense. Okay. And, unfortunately, a lot of people don’t.”

Here, DEI seems to be the administration’s convenient scapegoat for much more fundamental problems with America’s aviation system. An internal report from the Federal Aviation Administration uncovered by the New York Times found that there were too few people working the Reagan Airport’s air traffic control towers at the time of the crash, and some controllers were directing both planes and helicopters—a job typically divided between two people. A shortage of employees due to inadequate funding and high turnover has been a persistent problem for years, across administrations. 

We still have too little information to assign blame to anyone at this point. But we can’t discount the fact that the FAA has undergone significant upheaval over the last week and a half as a direct result of actions by the Trump administration. If the agency wanted to hire new people to fill its vacancies, they would have been unable to because of the Trump administration’s freeze on federal hiring. The FAA is also currently leaderless because Elon Musk pushed its administrator, Michael Whitaker, out of his job at the beginning of Trump’s term. (Musk did this because he was angry that the FAA fined SpaceX.) Trump has also fired or forced many other FAA employees to resign and gutted a commission that was in charge of identifying safety issues at airlines and airports. And air traffic controllers were among the federal employees who received an email earlier this week telling them to “resign” and take a buyout, or face potential termination down the road—part of the administration’s attempts to rapidly shrink the size of government. (Though at the moment, we don’t know if any of the Reagan Airport’s controllers took this deal.)

We don’t have definitive answers at this point as to what caused this disaster, and unlike Trump, we won’t pretend to. But we should be wary of the administration’s attempt to put the blame on some hypothetical minority and their hypothetical incompetence.

❧ In the latest escalation of his anti-immigrant purge, Trump says he’ll send deportees to Guantánamo Bay. Trump claims the prison camp would only be used to house “the worst criminal illegal aliens,” but since he also considers every undocumented person a “criminal” by definition, that isn’t exactly reassuring. The plan is reportedly for 30,000 people to be sent there, which would be a huge surge in arrests, since ICE currently has only around 38,000 people detained in total. Worst of all, the whole point of the Guantánamo base is that it exists in a gray area where many U.S. laws and constitutional protections don’t apply, so immigrants could be subjected to forms of abuse that are illegal on the mainland and there would be little anyone could do about it. (Axios)

❧ Tulsi Gabbard got grilled over her past support for Edward Snowden during her confirmation hearing to be Director of National Intelligence. Gabbard was asked four times if she would call Snowden a “traitor”—twice by Senator James Lankford (R-OK) and twice by Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO). To her credit, she refused all four times, offering only a vague statement about her “commitment to our Constitution and our nation’s security.” That was the right move, since Snowden is definitionally not a traitor; by exposing the U.S. government’s secret surveillance of its own citizens, he did every American a valuable public service. But congressional Republicans like Josh Hawley now say Gabbard’s confirmation is “in jeopardy,” precisely because of her criticisms of U.S. surveillance. Apparently being a frothing warmonger like Pete Hegseth or Marco Rubio is fine, but that’s a bridge too far. (The Hill)

Even the “spirit of aloha” might not save Tulsi this time. (Image: C-SPAN via YouTube)

❧ Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was also brought in for his confirmation hearing for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Members of Congress grilled him over his long history of anti-vaccine advocacy and advancement of numerous other strains of non-scientific crankery. All the while Kennedy, in attempt to make himself appear somewhat normal and palatable, made the ludicrous claim that he is “pro-vaccination,” which he is emphatically not. We’ll talk more about the hearings once he is either confirmed or rejected by the Senate. But for now, we invite you to watch this frankly hilarious clip of Bernie Sanders reading Kennedy the riot act because a website he founded sells baby clothes with anti-vaccine slogans:

This has to be the first time the word “onesies” has ever been used during a Senate hearing.

Meanwhile, there’s an ongoing effort to get as many people as possible to call Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a former medical doctor who has expressed concern about RFK Jr. already, and pressure him to vote against Kennedy. 

It’s unclear whether it’ll work, but either way we’ll know soon. 

❧ Trump has once again issued an executive order banning transgender people from the military. This is, of course, nothing new—he did the same thing in 2017. But independent journalist Erin Reed points out that this order has a critical, “chilling” difference from Trump’s previous trans military ban and most other anti-trans legislation in general. She points to the order’s “purpose” statement. Usually, anti-trans bills attempt to use a “veneer of scientific credibility” to justify their discriminatory intent. But this new order does not. Instead, it says the following: 

Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false “gender identity” divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service… adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.

As Reed notes:

This marks a chilling and undeniable shift. The attacks on transgender people are no longer cloaked in the faux respectability of “evidence,” “science,” or “protecting kids.”...Instead, the justification is laid bare in black and white: transgender people are “dishonorable,” “liars,” “false.” The language is stark, deliberate, and unmistakable—it dehumanizes us. This is the very rhetoric historically used to justify atrocity.

❧ Trump also signed an executive order to revoke the visas of foreign students found to be “Hamas sympathizers.” The Trump administration considers virtually anyone involved in pro-Palestinian activism to be a “Hamas sympathizer” meaning that any immigrant who attends a protest or expresses solidarity in any other way could be at serious risk. Despite what many people believe, non-citizens still have constitutional rights, including the right to free speech, meaning this act is almost certainly unconstitutional. (In These Times)

AROUND THE WORLD

❧ The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is once again extorting an African nation and its people. This time it’s Zimbabwe in the IMF’s crosshairs, as the financial institution has ordered the country to make what it describes as “difficult decisions” to pay back its debts before it will be allowed to access international capital markets. The bank wants both spending cuts and increased taxes, which means that every Zimbabwean would pay more and get less in the way of public services—and the IMF would pocket the difference. That’s a recipe for massive civil unrest and even riots, like the ones that kicked off in Kenya last year after similar IMF meddling. If the organization really wanted to help Africans, it would follow the plan laid out by Fidel Castro in 1985: total debt cancellation for poor nations in the Global South. Instead, it pursues only exploitation and imperialism. (Bloomberg)

❧ Italy has blocked China’s DeepSeek AI. Like with the effort to ban TikTok in the U.S., the justification the Italian government has presented—entirely without evidence—is that DeepSeek may collect personal data from its users and direct it toward some unspecified purpose, including training the AI itself. This is ironic for a few reasons, since U.S. and European tech companies collect user data constantly and use it to bombard us with “surveillance advertising,” and since AI models like ChatGPT in particular were built by siphoning up billions of words of information from all over the internet without asking anyone’s permission. As usual, the real problem appears to simply be that DeepSeek is Chinese, and the U.S. and European ruling classes want increased hostility with China, which will be more difficult to achieve if everyone likes their tech products. (South China Morning Post)

❧ The people of Singapore have been inundated with phone and internet scams from around the world. Its government is taking some unusually heavy-handed measures to combat them. Overwhelmingly, when people are swindled out of their own money, they give it up voluntarily—believing the scammer to be a government official or romantic partner. Earlier this month, Singapore’s legislature granted authorities the power to freeze the bank accounts of suspected scam victims without their permission. It’s no surprise that Singapore is the first nation to resort to such drastic measures to crack down on scams, given its history as a paternalistic “nanny state.” But the law has faced a fair bit of criticism, including from the opposition Worker’s Party, which calls it overly intrusive and says citizens should be able to opt out or trust their accounts to family members rather than the government. (Al Jazeera)

❧ Australia may soon build the world’s largest renewable energy project on a large stretch of coastal desert. The proposed plan would cover an area larger than El Salvador with more than 60 million solar panels and 3,000 wind turbines. The combined project is expected to produce about 200 terawatt hours of electricity per year, nearly doubling Australia’s green energy output. The site will also contain a plant to produce green ammonia, a renewable energy source that Australia is hoping to export to other parts of the world. It is expected that the site will take 30 years to be fully constructed, so it won’t do anything to solve the climate crisis right now. But it’s still important that countries begin developing the infrastructure to make renewable energy a permanent resource that exists in abundance. (Interesting Engineering)

Australia is a great place for gigantic solar projects like this because it has so much empty desert. If only America had vast stretches of empty space like this… Oh, wait. 

(Satellite image: Western Green Energy Hub)

AROUND THE STATES

WE’RE #32!

This week Louisiana’s Governor Jeff Landry, who you might remember from his insistence on dragging a live tiger to LSU football games, made an amazing post: 

Typically, coming 32nd in anything would not be grounds for celebration, especially in a ranking of 50 states; you won’t often hear anyone yelling “NUMBER THIRTY-TWO, BABY!” from a rooftop. But for Louisiana, this is actually an achievement, as the state was ranked #43 last year—a fact Landry rushed to clarify when his initial post was met with widespread mockery. Still, considering that his idea of education reform is library book bans and slapping the Ten Commandments on classroom walls, it’s safe to say this improvement is in spite of the governor, and not because of him.   

❧ While enforcing Trump’s “mass deportation” order, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has also been rounding up Native Americans. Across Arizona and New Mexico, there have been 15 documented cases of members of the Navajo Nation—who are American citizens—being stopped at their homes and workplaces by immigration agents, who detained them and demanded that they provide proof of citizenship. According to Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley, many of the people arrested felt that “they have been racially discriminated [against] and also profiled.” There’s really no other explanation for what’s happening here other than pure racial profiling. After all, Navajo and other indigenous tribes are about as far from being “immigrants” as it gets. (Truthout)

❧ Wyoming lawmakers have introduced new legislation to expand grizzly hunting. The proposals come as Trump’s nominee for interior secretary—former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum—has pledged to remove federal protections for grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The bears used to be endangered, but have experienced a population rebound due to the hunting restrictions. One of the bills would allow the government to give licensed elk hunters “bear coupons” that would allow them to kill one bear apiece. Another bill prohibits the state’s Game and Fish Department from protecting bears under the Endangered Species Act, leaving that enforcement to the federal government. Conservationists are horrified by both of these proposals. Chris Servheen, a retired grizzly bear recovery coordinator for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says that if these laws are implemented, grizzlies “wouldn’t last very long.” (WyoFile)

(Image: National Park Service)

❧ Whole Foods—the Amazon-owned grocery mega-chain—has its first union! This week, workers at a Whole Foods in Center City Philadelphia voted 130 to 100 to be represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. The effort has been years in the making, grievances building up for years over low pay and employee surveillance. Check out this video from More Perfect Union to learn more about it:

❧ Tennessee Republicans want to make it a felony for local lawmakers to vote against their immigration policies. Under a new bill called SB 6002, which passed the Tennessee state senate on Thursday, cities are forbidden to enact “sanctuary” policies offering undocumented immigrants safe haven from deportation. But that’s not all: the bill would also make it illegal for municipal lawmakers to even vote in favor of sanctuary status, and anyone who did so could be subject to as much as six years in prison and/or a $3,000 fine. Critics are calling the proposal “constitutionally suspect,” but that’s a massive understatement. Prison time for voting in a way the ruling party dislikes? That’s just fascism, and it has to be stopped in Tennessee before it spreads. (Tennessee Lookout)

❧ And in “laughing at the cops” news, a New York state trooper shot himself in the leg and claimed he was attacked. After pulling a Cheddar Bob on himself, Officer Thomas J. Mascia reportedly scattered bullet casings on the ground and reported a nonexistent assailant in a “bid for attention.” But hey, at least he didn’t encounter a lethal acorn. (New York Times)

DONKEY FACT OF THE WEEK

Serbian donkeys make the world's most expensive cheese!

In theory, of course, almost any mammal can participate in the cheesemaking process. But that theory isn’t usually put to the test... unless you’re in Serbia! Over there, “pule” cheese made from donkey milk has become a local delicacy. 

Pule cheese, also known as magareći sir, is only made in one place on Earth: the Zasavica Nature Reserve in Mačva, Serbia. As David Farley writes for Food and Wine, it was invented by Slobodan Simić, a former member of the Serbian parliament who “began rescuing mistreated Balkan donkeys from farms in 1997” and bringing them to the sanctuary. 

 A crowd of Zasavica donkeys greet incoming tourists. (Image: Visit Serbia)

Simić began experimenting with a variety of donkey-based products, and soon hit on the recipe for magareći sir—which has to incorporate both donkey milk (60 percent) and goats’ milk (40 percent), since the donkeys don’t make enough casein protein on their own. Donkeys also don’t produce very much milk compared to cows or goats, so the cheese is both rare and expensive, costing around $50 for a “golf ball-sized chunk” and a reported $1,300 for a full kilogram. 

Serbian donkey cheese, Gromit! (Image: Etherium Sky Films via YouTube)

Writing and research by Stephen Prager and Alex Skopic. Editing and additional material by Nathan J. Robinson and Lily Sánchez. Header graphic by Cali Traina Blume. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.

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