Thousands more flights canceled as Duffy warns the FAA's aging system could fail again

[u/serene_sketch]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/live/faa-ground-stop-latest-updates-duffy-blames-contractor-l3harris-thousands-more-flights-canceled-saturday-no-sign-of-cyberattack-161329174.html

[u/TheG00dF1ght]

Of course he tries to pass the blame to the "contractor" and not his team who should be overseeing any testing any rollout.

[u/MonkeyzzPaw → u/TheG00dF1ght]

this is a major indictment of leadership imo, as you said.

The second problem is that the people that they have in charge actually running this stuff are being testd for loyalty over competency. Combine that with the dismal view of the current gov bradly in tech (not the few billionaries, im talking the director and below that are actually running this shit).

Embarassing.

[u/abduis → u/MonkeyzzPaw]

It’d be a simple question. How much would it have cost to keep the old system running with all of the crew that were fired in the past two years?

He’s saying 50 billion more dollars to fix this new system they already spent a bunch of money on. I doubt keeping the old crew on would have been more expensive. Then they could save up and spend the extra money on the upgrades they’ve known that they’ve needed for the past decade.

[u/poly_lifestyle → u/abduis]

They didn’t do it to save money. They did it so they can hire their friends as contractors and funnel more money to them. It’s all a grift

[u/VaselineHabits → u/poly_lifestyle]

Correct, and some article claimed the company connected to the AI rollout is connected to Duffy.

So of course HE's not going to blame the AI and lack of testing.

[u/nox66 → u/VaselineHabits]

Contributed to his son-in-law's campaign: https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/sean-duffys-son-law-receives-171414620.html

[u/pit_of_despair666 → u/nox66]

The Trump administration also bought stock in the AI company that they used and Palantir is a partner. I remember reading that they were going to privatize the FAA in Project 2025.

[u/imperialTiefling → u/VaselineHabits]

Why would he? It's not like there's anything wrong with even a perceived conflict of interest /s

[u/Egad86 → u/poly_lifestyle]

Exactly! Instead of methodically utilizing resources and testing changes in sandboxes, they rushed in while they controlled everything and grabbed as much as possible without thought of consequence.

[u/mokomi → u/poly_lifestyle]

Yep. The republican MO. Fire the current solution. Bring in the new "solution" that's their friends or a middle man.

[u/frickindeal → u/mokomi]

Followed by: blame the last Democratic administration, after already being in office for 22 months with control of Congress and the presidency.

[u/evil_timmy → u/abduis]

They're already working with almost $20b granted over five years specifically for these upgrades, now they need an extra 250% for what? These upgrades are exactly the opposite of move fast and break things, when lives are at stake it's move slow and test things. If you use AI it should be to QA a billion testing scenarios to break things and add to your bugfix list. Every bit of code should be well structured, documented, and maintainable.

[u/big-oofs-only-0193 → u/abduis]

For 50 billion, they could double the number of air traffic controllers and pay them 200k/yr for 9 years.

[u/JohnHazardWandering → u/abduis]

I don't think that matters. It's the basics infrastructure that was overwhelmed by adding an AI service that pulled and pushed too much data. 

They got focused on a shiny new toy and forgot they need to fix the unsexy basics first. 

[u/Kind-Recover3321 → u/JohnHazardWandering]

You speak with common sense if the administration's motives were to improve the system and protect the American public. Their motives are to reap the rewards of power. That is all.

[u/ioncloud9 → u/MonkeyzzPaw]

Their leadership consists of blaming other people, especially political foes, and deflecting all blame away from their cult leader/mob boss. Their technical leadership consists of “test it? YOLO we will do it live!”

[u/Loggerdon → u/ioncloud9]

They’re sticking with “Trump is a builder and he will fix this.” Is there anyone who still believes this?

[u/Shopworn_Soul → u/Loggerdon]

Sadly, yes.

It's fucking bizarre. I can't even imagine how insulated from reality one might need to be to believe it.

Guys like Duffy and Mullin actually know better, of course. They're just incredible assholes and shameless liars.

[u/deejaymc → u/Loggerdon]

MAGA Problem Solving

Step 1) Create a problem that never existed before
Step 2) Blame Democrats
Step 3) Spend US taxpayer money on rich buddies to fix said problem
Step 4) Take credit for fixing the problem you created in the first place

[u/Strong_Copy_7113 → u/MonkeyzzPaw]

It’s the political version of how towns used to fill in their public pools instead of letting black people join. A lot of people still would rather everyone have nothing than see people they don’t like have what they have.

[u/IntelligentCarjack → u/Strong_Copy_7113]

Thats just the conservative mindset wherever you go. They rather drag us all back to the stone age instead if accepting someone veing slightly different then them..

[u/Riaayo → u/MonkeyzzPaw]

are being testd for loyalty over competency.

This is how authoritarian regimes always function. It's built in, why they are always garbage at running things, and why (among many other reasons) they are not a sustainable or good model of governance.

[u/breakmedown54 → u/TheG00dF1ght]

It’s worse than that.

“Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the outage began while L3Harris Technologies, which runs the network, was switching lines from copper wire to fiber at a remote FAA site. A router involved in the work flooded the rest of the system, disrupting communications with airplanes and radar. Duffy said officials are working to determine "whether we had incompetence" by the contractor or a faulty router.“

It was “routine maintenance”. This is upgrading the system that they are arguing needs upgrading. If they can’t even handle these small updates, which should be done around a redundant system as to not cause disruptions, why should we trust them with $50B to upgrade this?
And by “them” I mean the government, not the contractor they’re trying to blame.

[u/vacuitee → u/breakmedown54]

There is definitely a lot of information missing. I struggle to understand how a misconfigured router or an otherwise failed router/circuit upgrade could take down the national network for four hours. Several monumental fuck-ups happened in a perfect storm if it really is all related to a botched network upgrade.

[u/jrobbio → u/vacuitee]

It's possible it triggered a cascading failure. I've seen it happen with virtualised NVAs on VMware where a certain network behaviour caused it to pop and cause a kernel panic and then trigger others it connects to, to do the same. It actually happened twice until we worked out what was going on. Physical switches have all sorts of domains and blades, so the software in them is relatively complex.

[u/vacuitee → u/jrobbio]

You know, I have seen virtual environments fall on their ass too after network events. Definitely had to of been multiple system failures for it to take that long to recover from. I wonder if you can FOIA the RCA for this outage?

[u/Dal90 → u/vacuitee]

Been in corporate IT for 30 years. Four hours is on the short side for network disruptions.

Packet storms in the 1990s...shivers. Seen major network disruptions more rarely in 00s and 10s too. That's not counting when just one of our ISPs goes down for hours so we fail all the traffic to the other.

First corporate job was on a 3,000 user campus. It was taken out for 4-8 hours multiple times over a few months until there was enough evidence to prove it was a VP's unauthorized laptop running the then brand-new Windows 95. Obstinate VP, he refused to accept he could possibly be the cause despite suspicions until the network team captured the smoking gun evidence and his buddies higher up in the corporate ladder couldn't protect him anymore. I was one of the ones sent to physically seize the laptop.

[u/ekdaemon → u/vacuitee]

I struggle to understand how a misconfigured router or an otherwise failed router/circuit upgrade could take down the national network for four hours.

The lowest level core routing protocol that is used in large complex networks was created in the late 1980s, and although its high level concepts are simple, once you start trying to build something complex with the level of redundancy you want ... it gets INSANELY complicated, especially if your network is already 20 years old and has been expanded and changed a little bit 100 times over those 20 years.

Routing changes are the most dangerous type of change an organization can undertake.

Network Engineers who have hands on experience with very large scale complex networks whose history extends 20 years into the past can command an enormous premium, and are not easy to find.

Sure you can find some recent grads who just finished a Cisco certification or two - but if you let one of them plan and implement a change without oversight and review by a team of six to a dozen other senior network engineers - what happened yesterday is what happens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Gateway_Protocol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiprotocol_Label_Switching

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multipath_routing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernetwork

Years ago Microsoft had an entire Azure region's intenet connectivity go unavailable because of a "simple routing problem":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Gateway_Protocol#512k_day

...and one of Canada's two biggest ISP/Cell-provider had an outage in 2022 that lasted 15-24 hours and it was also a complex routing problem.

[u/dayumbrah → u/TheG00dF1ght]

Isn't he the contractor? Or is he blaming a subcontractor for his company?

[u/TheOwlMarble → u/dayumbrah]

L3Harris owns the legacy network. They're the ones he threw under the bus (and who haven't replied to news agencies for comment).

His conflicts of interest are related to the effort to replace L3H's network with a new one not managed by them.

[u/MFoy → u/TheOwlMarble]

His son in law is leaving because he was just elected to Congress, and the company that made the AI system was apparently a major donor.

[u/view-master → u/TheG00dF1ght]

If it’s a contractor then who is that 50 billion for? You don’t pay for your contractors upgrades. You give them upgraded specifications and if they can’t meet them take bids for who can.

[u/AwesomeWhiteDude → u/view-master]

I bet they haven't even spent all $12 billion the FAA got from the Big Bullshit Bill

[u/Nandor-De_Laurentiis → u/AwesomeWhiteDude]

I mean they could use some of that money they're wasting on Trump's ballroom, arch, reflecting pool, golf course, and his other "home renovation" projects.

The Trump Administration Has Devoted at Least $1.6 Billion in Taxpayer Dollars to Vanity Projects - Center for American Progress

Since the start of his second term, President Donald Trump’s administration has spent or plans to spend at least $1.6 billion of public funding on vanity projects, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress. Another recent report estimates that the Trump administration’s projects to benefit the president or burnish his image have cost $1.8 billion. This higher total accounts for private as well as taxpayer spending; CAP’s analysis focuses on federal spending on public needs, so only publicly reported federal spending on vanity projects is included.

[u/aust_b → u/TheG00dF1ght]

CHAT GBT WHATS QA MEAN?

[u/lavahot → u/TheG00dF1ght]

One link should not bring down the whole system. We figured this out in the 80s. He's either lying or the system has been in a fragile state since his tenure.

[u/whiskeytown79 → u/TheG00dF1ght]

It's a core tenet of fascism. Always find a target to blame, never accept responsibility for things going wrong.

[u/CompetitionOk2302]

Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation, former FOX TV personality, has a daughter, who is married to 26 year old Michael Alfonso.

Alfonso took a $2500 political donation from Air Space Intelligence (ASI).  Alfonso does not work at the FAA and has not been appointed to any role there.

Alfonso decides to run for US House, and started accepting donations for his campaign. Although running in Wisconsin, vast amount of donations were from out of state.

“Air Space Intelligence, an AI-powered air-traffic software 2017 start-up, won a $875 million contract with the Federal Aviation Administration just months after its corporate PAC donated to Alfonso.”

There are other examples of the same thing happening with other donations and favors being given by Duffy & Alfonso.

So, Air Space Intelligence, whose s/w was installed at the FAA this week, received an almost $900 million AFTER the donation. Having spent my career in tech, it’s impossible for a small startup to have the resources to develop a system AND DEPLOY IT in a few years across an organization as complex as the FAA.

And.. why would the FAA deploy new software this time of the year, busiest travel season coming up? My take, if they wait until after Jan 3, the contract has a good chance of getting cancelled, so they rushed to get a foothold in an attempt to avoid cancelation.

This is self dealing by Alfonso & Duffy, it’s illegal, it’s ridiculous. Lock these people up. This is theft… white collar theft. They are putting lives at risk do their incompetence and greed.

Updated for errors.

[u/Responsible_Ladder25 → u/CompetitionOk2302]

And, terrifyingly, business as usual in the current administration. And it's probably just the tip of the iceberg. No wonder they're threatening criminal action if investigations into the admnistration ensue.

[u/CandySuccessful9283 → u/CompetitionOk2302]

Why is this not a headline??? I was stuck in the airport all night yesterday and all I could say was fuck the government, fuck Trump.

[u/Caymonki → u/CandySuccessful9283]

Because all our media is owned by Oligarchs who support the fire sale on America. They want Company Towns, and the federal government is in the way.

This is more Project 2025 stuff, the dismantling of a Democracy.

[u/Joessandwich → u/Caymonki]

It’s also why the media is focusing on the affair part of Jensen Huang and not the fact that he was compromised by a Chinese spy and was complicit in breaking US trade law.

[u/Eisernes → u/CandySuccessful9283]

Gizmodo reported on it the day before the outage. The rest are bought off shills.

[u/Sancticide → u/Eisernes]

What a world where Giz-fucking-modo is the last bastion of journalistic integrity. JFC.

[u/PeachScary413 → u/CandySuccessful9283]

Because journalism died many many years ago my friend.

[u/rooplstilskin → u/CompetitionOk2302]

Remember, dismantling and destroying the FAA is listed as an item for Project 2025.

[u/Maremdeo → u/rooplstilskin]

I didn't know this. What's the goal? God I hate these criminal pedophile sociopaths. How are there so many of them?

[u/TheKlaxMaster → u/Maremdeo]

To funnel money into all their own, their friends, and their families companies to rebuild it. That's all it is.

[u/Emberwake → u/Maremdeo]

AnCaps (Anarcho-Capitalists) see government itself as an existential threat. To a billionaire, any government represents a risk to their power and wealth, since governments are the only institutions that have any power over them.

Their solution is to infiltrate and weaken the government to the point of uselessness. This is, of course, a tremendously stupid and shortsighted plan, as weakening the government will not result in a vacuum. Other governments will move in if the US should become weak enough.

This is not an unprecedented chain of events. Historically, this is one of the chief ways that empires fall: internal power struggles deliberately destabilize the institutions of power, at which point an external power steps in to fill the void.

[u/mobicurious → u/CompetitionOk2302]

Time to start putting some serious social pressure on the executives and staff at Air Space Intelligence

[u/StringerBell34 → u/CompetitionOk2302]

MAGA doesn't care about white people crimes. They just want to make sure black people go to jail for petty theft.

[u/AccomplishedIgit → u/CompetitionOk2302]

Nobody doubts this is just a money grab for them

[u/MuthaPlucka]

Blackmailing Congress on TV? When does this shit show become too much to bear?

[u/swmtchuffer → u/MuthaPlucka]

What a clown ass press conference.

[u/JeanBaptisteEzOrg → u/swmtchuffer]

I was like it's literally just those 2 idiots. They didn't even have like an ear piece in lmao.. someone was probably yelling off screen at them.

[u/swmtchuffer → u/JeanBaptisteEzOrg]

Honestly, I can't keep up with which idiot is in charge of what in this administration but when I heard it was those two chuckleheads having a presser I tuned it and was still shocked at how bad it was.

[u/JohnHazardWandering → u/MuthaPlucka]

It's funny how he asks for a bipartisan bill. Republicans are running shit over there, dude.  

Your circus, your monkey, your problem. 

[u/DukeOfGeek → u/JohnHazardWandering]

DOGE fired all the competent people and overloaded the remaining workers. Their stupid AI "fix" broke everything and now they want a 50 billion dollar gift to grift for their cronies. I can't wait for them all to be in jail.

[u/youritalianjob → u/MuthaPlucka]

It's not even blackmailing, they're just trying to save face because they don't know how to be accountable for their actions.

[u/BellaSabia → u/youritalianjob]

It is clearly extortion. The press conference brings this into focus.

[u/Intellectual-Hamster → u/BellaSabia]

Mafia tactics... would be a shame if something happened to air traffic. Better pay us to make sure it doesn't.

[u/DonkeyTron42 → u/MuthaPlucka]

So they got $12.5B for upgrades from the BBB but only have spent $1B so far. Now they want another $50B. Something's not adding up.

[u/GuacKiller → u/MuthaPlucka]

Congress does a thorough investigation, under oath, and question the people involved, including contractors and see what caused the outage before releasing any funds.

[u/082426grateful → u/MuthaPlucka]

If becomes too much to bear when the populace loses its chicken wings and football on Sundays.

[u/bonyponyride → u/MuthaPlucka]

Has Schumer had a press conference yet to say out loud what all of us are writing here, or is he just chatting his buddies up in the gym locker room, making everyone uncomfortable with his dangly old man balls hanging below the bottom of his towel?

[u/JacoDeLumbre]

Project 2025, Page 632: to separate the Air Traffic Organization from the FAA. And page 633 is privatizing the communications system.

[u/Eponack → u/JacoDeLumbre]

These are the things that need to be made aware to the people. This isn’t a mistake or crumbling systems, this is a plan. A plan we have had access to for a long time.

[u/Working_Cucumber_437 → u/Eponack]

This should be all over mainstream media. They should be calling out everything the admin does that follows the playbook they claimed to know nothing about.

[u/Relevant_Primary658 → u/Working_Cucumber_437]

Mainstream media is now owned by the very same people who are trying to monetize the government.  But before that, Project 2025 was reported on and dismissed as being fake news. 

[u/tech_noir_guitar → u/Relevant_Primary658]

This is exactly it.

[u/Relevant_Primary658 → u/Eponack]

Project 2025 is the plan.  It has been public for a while, including during the run up to the 2024 election.  Two big issues are 1) the MAGA base doesn't read and 2) they don't believe anything they didn't see on Fox News or Facebook. 

[u/The_amazing_T → u/Eponack]

This is extortion. From our own government.

[u/TropicalPrairie → u/Eponack]

Non-American asking. What is the end goal of Project 2025?

[u/bobthegoatskull → u/TropicalPrairie]

Fascism. Specificly White Evangelical Christian/Zionist fascism. That is not a contradiction. They are the same people.

[u/SignificantCar4204 → u/JacoDeLumbre]

Only way to stop this is for people to vote blue again in 2028. None of this "both sides" bullshit. The next 2 years are going to be pretty stale in terms of legislation and I'm afraid people are going to fall back into the "democrats didn't do anything for the past 2 years" bullshit and it's going to hurt us in 2028.

[u/fistfullofpubes → u/SignificantCar4204]

People in Texas are already asking why nothing is happening since the election. People are idiots.

[u/Bearsbullsbattlestr → u/fistfullofpubes]

People, bots, or both?

[u/ExistentialScream → u/Bearsbullsbattlestr]

Bots and Republicans i'd wager.

[u/Apprehensive-Pen8241 → u/JacoDeLumbre]

Here it is to read for yourselves

https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

[u/Thoraxe474 → u/JacoDeLumbre]

Why do they want to separate it from the FAA

[u/deschain_19195 → u/Thoraxe474]

They're trying to privatize all parts of government to enrich themselves

[u/DonkeyTron42 → u/deschain_19195]

Exactly. Need to call 911? Better enter your credit card first.

[u/actuallyapossom → u/DonkeyTron42]

Y'all aren't excited for Police by Amazon™️?

[u/rtietatomic → u/actuallyapossom]

That idea taken to the extreme:

https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/comments/jbff9q/libertarian_police/

[u/wwaxwork → u/Thoraxe474]

To privatize it. They want to privatize everything basically.

[u/Fickle_Ad_8653 → u/wwaxwork]

Then raise the price, then skim money off the top, then go out of business and sell it to another private company who tells you it is a mess and will never improve.

[u/Noblesseux → u/wwaxwork]

Yeah the Heritage Foundation has been calling for privatization of straight up every government service for decades. They also want to do this to roads btw, so have fun when every single road in the country requires you to pay a toll to use it.

[u/Parking-Interview351 → u/Thoraxe474]

To sell it to themselves and start making profit off of it.

[u/creaturefeature16 → u/Thoraxe474]

It's called "selling the country off for parts". It's capitalism's natural conclusion.

[u/GiantLesbian → u/Thoraxe474]

When you hoard so much money that normal people can’t afford to buy things from you, governments still have money. That’s why they want to privatize parts of governments and then sell those services back to them.

[u/Hex-Queen → u/JacoDeLumbre]

Fucking thank you!!! 

I'm so tired of the naive and oblivious speculation like none if this is intentional. They literally laid it out in Project 2025 that nobody fucking read, and is what got us here in the first place. 

Ahhhhhhhhhh, I want to scream sometimes!!! 

[u/Soci3talCollaps3 → u/JacoDeLumbre]

You're not kidding. And page 634 continues with gutting environmental protections that could slow down the privatization.

[u/EssbaumRises → u/JacoDeLumbre]

This should be the top comment.

[u/Obvious_Class394]

Duffy can resign. Any competent engineer would have discovered these things before making changes. 

[u/Chris22533 → u/Obvious_Class394]

They were probably warned but they were more concerned about eliminating jobs. The GOP has hated ATC for decades because of how essential they are to air travel

[u/SaltyFriend705 → u/Chris22533]

Yes, the sabotage of PATCO by Reagan was the beginning. They went on strike demanding permanent funding for systems upgrades, Reagan fired them for it.

[u/newleafkratom → u/Chris22533]

The only union the right supports are cops.

[u/korinth86 → u/Obvious_Class394]

Its a grift. They asked for 50billion to funnel it into his son's company.

The system needs updating for sure but all of thia happened 2 days after they started implementing an untested AI system.

[u/Chris22533 → u/korinth86]

One day. The roll out was on the 12th and the systems went down on the 13th

[u/TALKTOME0701]

I would not trust this man with $20 

He can't articulate the reasons for the failure but he's sure he can fix it if we give him 50 billion

Why aren't we talking more about the fact that this also coincides with the rollout of AI?

We can't continue to be this stupid

[u/C-Towner → u/TALKTOME0701]

This is the part that so many people aren’t talking about. I can get behind a study to formulate a proposal for what a new and modern system would look like, then arriving at a cost. But asking for $50B with the concepts of a plan just doesn’t work for me.

They broke the current system, and are using that as a reason why we need a new one. There needs to be some accountability for the lack for foresight and testing that led to this failure.

[u/Mockingjay_LA → u/C-Towner]

Yes, like who is he yelling at during the press conference???? His people are in charge right now and have been for a minute!

[u/Loose-Recognition459 → u/Mockingjay_LA]

When has a Trump 2 press conference been anything but a display of projection and gaslighting? They are indistinguishable from his Rallies.

[u/Butters5768 → u/Mockingjay_LA]

I love how his biggest concern is correcting the reporter calling it AI instead of SI. Like priorities dude 🥴

[u/thecastellan1115 → u/C-Towner]

The thing is, FAA was executing a modernization plan when Duffy came into his position.

I'll give you three guesses what happened to that plan.

[u/lifting_cardio → u/thecastellan1115]

Well for starters, we know that Duffy’s plan called for a 90 day test period and they bypassed his own 90day plan and pushed it out in 50 days.

Sean Duffy is a liar, a fraudster, and a huckster. He needs to be charged with the fraud he is engaging in via contracts being delivered to his own family members related to the DoTransportation.

[u/tryndamererage → u/TALKTOME0701]

Hes holding the airlines hostage for 50B. To give to his companies he has stake in. Its like a button that you can get $20 but it cost someone else $1000 and they dont fucking care mashing that button as fast as they can. Hes another pardon mark my words

[u/TraditionalWinter890 → u/TALKTOME0701]

Oh yeah we can. This is the same nation that elected for Trump the scam artist twice. 

[u/Garry_Heckscream69 → u/TALKTOME0701]

I love how they say "go woke, go broke" and yet they're the ones begging for money on live TV like a tiktok live streamer 😭

[u/ColtranezRain]

So he’s telling us the old system, with four levels of redundancy and has never experienced an outage of all four systems at the same time, caused this outage—the worst ever, and that the new AI system introduced this week is not related? Riiiiiiiight.

[u/BlueFeathered1 → u/ColtranezRain]

I'm so tired of being lied to and knowing that many will buy these lies.

[u/Nawnp → u/BlueFeathered1]

Might as well hang a sign on his head saying if you're listening to me, you're a fool...and somebody would still believe the lies.

[u/27Rench27 → u/ColtranezRain]

I could totally understand the old-as-fuck system causing this because, y’know. But “hey I gave a bunch of money to an AI company, and they rolled out a new thing, and all the old things failed so I need more money” doesn’t fly in the slightest

Edit: guys the “doesn’t fly” remark was not intentional, for the record lmao

[u/ColtranezRain → u/27Rench27]

Like i said, the old system is actually four redundant systems (i.e. they are built to work through multiple failures). One or two, or even three, going out at the same time would not result in the problem described. Only all four being compromised could do that.

[u/PyrateKyng94 → u/27Rench27]

Pretty sure the AI company is owned by his son in law

[u/No-Context-Orphan → u/PyrateKyng94]

Not owned but they donated to his son in law political campaign

[u/reddititty69 → u/No-Context-Orphan]

So the AI company owns him

[u/Current-Actuator-360]

It worked before they touched it.

[u/Whole_Kale_4349]

The U.S. where we have trillionaires but no functioning public infrastructure. Do you taste the freedom yet?

[u/north_canadian_ice → u/Whole_Kale_4349]

The moral bankruptcy of the business leaders who control America is jarring.

Decaying infrastructure, endless wars, & the culture wars they fund to push regular people to hate each other. People are working harder than ever for less & less.

These business leaders much prefer a dystopia they can rule over vs. a utopia they share power in. They like having power over the powerless & they like seeing the powerless suffer.

That is why they are so gleeful when they talk about their plan to automate everyone's job away. They are so gleeful about leaving Mother Earth to form space colonies.

What do they care about climate change, they plan to leave anyway. They openly mock the idea of providing any social services or relief to the people they plan to unemploy.

Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects

[u/CubicleMan9000 → u/north_canadian_ice]

Every country, kingdom, empire, etc has had it's filthy-richest citizens try to take over and wreck it. Tale as old as time.

What is different here is the 1/3 to 1/2 of regular Americans that will defend the richest people from laws, taxes, etc to the bitter end. Like, real dedicated defense. 

In the US the trolley problem is millions of people tied to one track that will get run over, vs a few billionaires that wouldn't be harmed by the trolley, they'd just be a little less filthy rich from it. 

And half the millions of people tied to the track are screaming to have themselves run over rather than allow the filthy rich to be inconvenienced.

I know the "they believe they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires" thing... but they won't. Maybe 0.0001% will, and they all think they are that 0.0001% I guess?

[u/Maremdeo → u/CubicleMan9000]

My father is a lifelong Christian who votes based on abortion. He had never liked Trump. But I was talking to him about all this corruption, and he out of nowhere said the rich shouldn't pay higher taxes. WTF? This guy follows the bible, tithes money to the church, and gives money to charitible causes all the time. He has no aspiration to be rich, yet he defends them? What kind of brainwashing is Fox and the church peddling these days? As Jebus said: "Blessed are the wealthy, for they shall control the earth and rape the children."

[u/dankfor20 → u/north_canadian_ice]

Just look at return to office as a primary example. Such a dystopian abuse of power for the sake of it.

[u/north_canadian_ice → u/dankfor20]

It really is a great example.

Remote work is nirvana for so many disabled people, neurodivergent people, working mothers, caretakers, etc.

Not to mention people who just don't want to spend 10+ hours commuting to work each week if it isn't necessary. Remote work opens so many doors for so many.

But business leaders often look down on women, disabled people, neurodivergent people, etc. These same business leaders fund politicians who want to eliminate women's rights, who want disabled people to live on $1000 a month, etc.

And then these business leaders will tell you with a straight face that return to office is about "culture". Even as they offshore jobs so they can pay people very low wages in countries like India.

All of this is about control, real estate, etc. Power & greed are the only two principles that business leaders give a damn about these days.

[u/dankfor20 → u/north_canadian_ice]

You can factor all the burning of extra fossil fuels for the commute as well. Climate change staring us all down and they don’t care about the impact of commuting. Only their own selfish interests. It’s straight villainy.

[u/supersonicdutch → u/dankfor20]

People already forgot about the indisputable positive change in photos of air quality from less traffic. The reduction in smog in major cities was crazy to see happen in just a few months.

[u/Haunted-Circus → u/Whole_Kale_4349]

US airspace running on systems decades old meanwhile we're bombing countries with billions of dollars lmao. Such a clown show.

[u/cookingboy → u/Haunted-Circus]

U.S spent $2 trillion on the Iraq War, meanwhile China spent that much on their national high-speed rail project.

It tells you everything there is to know about this country’s priorities.

[u/ministerspinister → u/Haunted-Circus]

The decades old system isn't the issue. It's functioned properly for decades. The problem is the headlong rush into AI implementation to maximize profit.

[u/Kerlyle → u/ministerspinister]

It's both. We have computer systems that are being kept alive by parts off eBay, planes held together by cold war technology, and ATC controllers that are nearing retirement. That would have failed eventually (though not all at once). But it was also infinitely stupid to just throw AI at a system from the 80s, with no regard for testing and no input from the people that actually run our ATC network, and DDOS your own infrastructure because they couldn't be bothered to develop something that'd be compatible.

[u/WhiteTrashIdiotFuck → u/Kerlyle]

I'm one of the guys who buys those parts on eBay as part of my career. I have been in telecom for over a decade and people have no idea how many critical systems run off the Server of Theseus; perpetually kept alive by salvaged parts from others like it, running some software developed by a company that collapsed during the subprime mortgage crash back in 2007.

[u/Positive_League_5534 → u/ministerspinister]

The old system is a problem...it needed to be fixed. However, what you don't do is throw a new system on top of it without knowing what the effects might be.
You can only shoot so many paperclips through a straw.

[u/tripping_on_phonics → u/Haunted-Circus]

The infrastructure is old, but that isn’t the problem here. It isn’t coincidence that we had the first national grounding of aircraft since 9/11 right as the Trump administration is rolling out AI air traffic control and all sorts of other fuckery.

[u/wpoot → u/tripping_on_phonics]

Second* full ground stop, but your point still stands.

[u/MLGWolf69 → u/Haunted-Circus]

At least the old system worked. The new AI system rolled out 3 days ago and instantly grounded all flights

[u/discostu52 → u/Whole_Kale_4349]

It was working until the trillionaires fucked with it.

[u/johnnycyberpunk → u/discostu52]

Maybe it wasn’t great, maybe only at 80% efficiency, maybe held together with duct tape and willpower…. But it was working.

---

Full ground stop means 0% efficiency.

This DOGE mentality of “move fast and break stuff” is fucking exhausting

[u/Antifa-AF → u/Whole_Kale_4349]

That’s the trickle down you’re tasting. Spoiler: it’s piss

[u/-Mr_Tub-]

They’re really trying to pass this off as the existing system that hasn’t had issues is the problem and they need more money to replace it instead of the thing that got mass deployed within 24 hours of everything breaking

[u/JohnHazardWandering → u/-Mr_Tub-]

Don't they already have 12 billion to upgrade the systems?

[u/Dogsy → u/JohnHazardWandering]

You think 12 billion is enough for these greedy motherfuckers? 30 billion? No, they want 50 fucking billion MORE. They want to give literal truck loads of money to bullshit contractors for years and grift a fuck ton of free money while they can. They're doing this right now right when air travel is going to be on everyone's mind in the next couple of weeks.

I hope these dumbshits don't get what they're trying for.

[u/NoirRenie]

Don’t say this while I’m headed to the airport again after the failed attempt yesterday

[u/CplRicci → u/NoirRenie]

Sitting in PHL with my fingers crossed

[u/FblthpLives]

Duffy is a political hack. His internal DOT emails are full of political and ideological propaganda that would be judged as blatant Hatch Act violations in any normal administrations. He also has zero experience in transportation. At least FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford is competent, having worked as an airline president. He is much more of a technocrat and less of the ideological lapdog that Duffy is. My only complaint against him is that he is super-religious and sometimes that blends into his emails and internal messages.

[u/DrChimRichaulds]

So let’s see: this is a system that has multiple levels of redundancy, yet a single router necessitated bringing it down.

They have the best people, yet government is full of incompetent people that waste taxpayer money and need to be fired.

This antiquated system is a known liability passed on to this administration, yet none of the 12 billion dollars they requested and received was prioritized for fixing it.

I’m sorry, but when you spend two plus years crapping on government, then actively destroy it, and funnel money to your buddies…I just don’t think you deserve a dime of taxpayer money when there’s nothing but a history of mismanagement and idiocy.

[u/whiskybottle → u/DrChimRichaulds]

This is their cover story for the new vibe-coded system they implemented the day before DDoSing flight and weather systems.

[u/brakeb → u/DrChimRichaulds]

"best people" is doing a huge lift here

[u/ruggmike]

“And if we don’t get 50 billion we’ll do it again”

[u/TrynnaFindaBalance → u/ruggmike]

Only $10bn of the money he’s requesting is actually for ATC modernization. The rest is for shit like “airport beautification projects”. And Congress is already skeptical and scrutinizing where the $12.5bn they already allotted was actually spent.

[u/bonyponyride → u/TrynnaFindaBalance]

Someone needed to buy the leftover stock of Trump phones.

[u/blownawaynow → u/TrynnaFindaBalance]

$6 billion to take all the chairs from TSA agents and $6.5 billion to tell travelers to stop wearing sweatpants to the airport.

[u/Taint__Paint → u/ruggmike]

“It hasn’t happened before but it’s going to keep happening because we are in charge. Now give us $50 billion or we will hold the airline industry hostage”

[u/gloomndoom → u/ruggmike]

“… during Thanksgiving travel.”

[u/vasta2]

Give me $50,000,000,000

[u/ZubatCountry → u/vasta2]

stupida facking country

[u/NoBullet]

The funniest part of that press talk was starting off with “this is going to be happening more often” before he even explained what is causing it. He’s so giddy to rob more money from Americans he can’t contain himself.

[u/SadMall6272]

I am currently sleeping on the Minneapolis airport floor right now. My flight back to Philly was scheduled for 8:30pm yesterday. It was delayed til 11:30pm and then canceled. I stayed up all night at the airport without any sleep as I cannot sleep with all the noise around me, in an uncomfortable position, hoping for a standby flight at 10:30am the next morning. That flight was delayed til 11:30am and then canceled again. There is another standby flight at 2:30pm which has been delayed til 5pm. Guess what will happen next? I fortunately have a "guaranteed flight" at 8:10pm which better not get fucking canceled.

Fuck this Duffy guy and fuck this administration for their incompetence. They are playing with millions of American lives right now and they do not give a single fuck about us.

Update: My flight was delayed til 10pm... FML

[u/BadDongOne → u/SadMall6272]

https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative Find your Congressional representative, call the switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and leave them a message to let them know how unhappy you are with the situation you've been placed in. Then look up your state Senator, call the above number, and leave them the same message. Let your elected officials know how upset you are by the incompetence of this administration. Let them know you want this investigated and followed up on. 

[u/ZestyChinchilla]

“Everything was fine with our system until it was shut off by dickless here.”

[u/theFrankSpot → u/ZestyChinchilla]

It’s true. This man has no dick.

[u/Blizzard_of_Bozz23]

The AI new software that was implemented 48 hours before is what caused this. No one will be saying this out loud for quite awhile.

[u/crazyreddit929 → u/Blizzard_of_Bozz23]

They said it today. Mullins admits it was the AI system but blames it on the old system not being able to handle the new system. Brilliant. Feels like something that testing could have revealed. Of course Trump blames Biden since that’s his go-to. Most incompetent group of “leaders” ever put in charge. 

[u/aerost0rm → u/crazyreddit929]

The sad part is that these businessmen that were out in our government do not know how It works. You test versus one system and then a small batch and wait. I bet it was rushed out and no testing was done.

[u/Severe-Archer-1673 → u/aerost0rm]

You know, it would be nice if our government was filled with public servants instead of self servants.

[u/billj457]

Testing in prod is the best.. no plan, no parallel testing period; just full send into stupidity.

[u/omgtmilol → u/billj457]

The customers will find the bugs for you.

[u/Taint__Paint → u/billj457]

“Build and test in test env then promote to prod? Aint nobody got time for that. Let’s just do it on a Friday afternoon in prod. What’s the worst that could happen?”

-marky markwaynewhatever probably

[u/jhuseby]

Maybe letting doge completely gut our federal agencies was a bad thing…no no no, it’s Democrat’s fault.

[u/mad-i-moody]

I haven’t read a whole lot about this issue but what I THINK is going on is:

DOGE facilitated cuts to the FAA which has put strain on the system. They tried to test out some new AI tech. They broke everything and now are saying that it’s the old system that’s at fault? Is that what’s going on here?

[u/vass0922 → u/mad-i-moody]

You forgot they need 50 billion to fix it

[u/Zaxxon_Klaxon]

Trump, Duffy and Mullins are 100% responsible for this garbage.

[u/InterestingLuck3105]

So, lemme see if I got this right.
"SMART" was developed by a company called AIC on a $875 MILLION no-bid contract. (nearly a BILLION!, 'no-bid')

The contract was awarded by Sean Duffy.

And by a fantastic coincidence, that no one could have ever predicted, it turns out that AIC is run by Duffy's son in law.

They are blaming L3Harris, for what role in this fuck-up? Oh, that's right, they pushed a button.

[u/Parking-Interview351 → u/InterestingLuck3105]

And meanwhile SMART is vibecoded.

So we paid Duffy’s son in law 1 billion dollars to have Claude put together a system that doesn’t even work.

[u/Wooden-You-4211 → u/Parking-Interview351]

And honestly? You're right to push back on this software rollout.

[u/realqmaster]

I'm a software engineer. If the guy tasked with enhancing a legacy system that worked for years would

• Crash production on first try
• Claim his change isn't the issue, it's the legacy system for not handling it
• Asks for a raise

He's getting my foot up his ass all the way to the door. This is not normal and is glaringly malicious. Project 2025 mandates loyalty above competence, after all.

[u/gravteck → u/realqmaster]

We once had a peer team deploy a feature branch to dev and then straight to prod. The PO in charge of that team was relatively new in the role, and something in prod broke, but the rollback worked just fine. This was very low stakes, but they were put on the naughty list because that version was never sanity checked in staging. Ultimately it was great awareness, so everyone knew what was expected of them, if they didn't already. Purely internal app that had simple workarounds, and we took it more seriously than the FAA, apparently.

[u/Pupside_down]

I sure would like to know exactly what happened to the billions already allocated to modernizing the aviation system under Biden’s infrastructure bill. And what exactly did DOGE do to degrade the system? Let’s follow the money—before we hand these crooks billions more.

[u/Inevitable_Scene4422]

Project 2025...

"Separate the Air Traffic Org from the FAA" pg 632

"Privatize the Communication System" pg 633

[u/not_here_nor_ther]

This is what happens when you have a jackass running an entire department. Stupid moron hired a consultant company who donated to Maga and probably outsourced all their work to a bunch of recent college grads in another country who didn't know what the hell they were doing

Edit why in the hell would we give you $50 billion when you can't even keep what was there already running? The guy is a moron and should get fired

[u/CompanyWhole6931]

dudes been in office over 2 years... what's he been doing folks? #ClownShow

[u/Odd-Fun-6042 → u/CompanyWhole6931]

MTV reunions.

[u/joker_toker28 → u/CompanyWhole6931]

Circus is what the whole thing is. Imagine being a business partner outside the us and seeing what has happend the past 8 years... Id run to the hills w my money and contacts.

They've alienated allies and now even the public is starting to wake up and wonder what the hell they are doing and them gaslighting us makes it even worst.

I hope history books drags these ppl to a new low and let's folks never forget. Immortalize forever as THE WORST 8 YEARS IN AMERICAN HISTORY, so far.

[u/Man_Without_Nipples]

This is embarrassing

[u/HR_DUCK]

Trying to pillage America before 2027 is the message here

[u/BigCrustyTits]

I hope this moron Duffy fixes it before Thanksgiving travel starts.

[u/r0ndy → u/BigCrustyTits]

Nah, goal is for it to fail, so they can privatize this further… just like federal parks and the mail service

Edit: I know most of this has been forecast in the Project 2025. The brass tacks of this, it is pure capitalism, that’s the goal. Like pure socialism but instead pure capitalism, privatize as much as possible

[u/Imeatbag → u/r0ndy]

And public schools

[u/ZubatCountry]

Why didn't two Trump controlled Congress's do anything about it?

[u/bucketman1986]

So they are saying it's old routers? Am I getting this right??

[u/Rosc → u/bucketman1986]

Well, you see, the new system failed when they added AI to it, but it’s not the AI‘s fault. It’s that the old system was too old for the new AI

[u/amenflurries → u/Rosc]

Don’t forget the 50 billion dollar grift

[u/Ecstatictobehere → u/bucketman1986]

They are saying anything it takes to get 50 billion dollars. They are using american people as ransom. It's all a scam, right in front of our faces.

[u/privacyisdignity]

Maybe they should hire the same contractor who worked on the reflecting pool makeover to fix the problem.

[u/jerrolds]

Republicans fuck every single thing up.

[u/MennoMateo]

This is typical US conservatism, break shit, blame others for it being broken and then pad one's own pockets in the repairs

[u/anthonysny]

This is another fraud.

[u/MaximumAd9779]

This administration has broken every last system that worked just fine before them

[u/PlayThisStation]

The same company that donated to Duffy's suspiciously eyebrowed son-in-law's political campaign, right?

[u/PensiveinNJ]

That's hilarious. They're deliberately breaking it to try and shake someone down.