In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

I've been deeply skeptical of the NTSB's investigation of the January 29 collision of a helicopter and a jet landing at Reagan National Airport on January 29, especially after Todd Inman's remarks at the February 1 press conference implying disagreements among the investigators over releasing data on the helicopter's altitude. This has been a sensitive question since the investigation began, and it clearly continues to be, since the NTSB held an update press conference yesterday afternoon, the traditional Friday bad-news dump. Here's a transcript of Chairman Homendy's remarks at the press conferenc e. There isn't a whole lot that's new, and what is, is buried within the old. ABC News gives the approved version of the briefing: There's no indication the U.S. Army Black Hawk crew could tell there was an impending collision before its devastating crash with an American Airlines plane in Washington, D.C., National Transportation Safety Board...

Up to now, I've been following what seems to be the received total of something over $100 million as the annual amount the Catholic Church gets in US government grants. For instance, Vice President Vance used this number in a speech reported by America magazine : And I think that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line? I mentioned the same amount in this post , but so far I haven't been able to find the source, and the vice president doesn't list it, either. The problem I'm beginning to have is that the actual amounts in grants from all US government sources to the Catholic Church are starting to look much, much larger. I linked to a story from Just the News in yesterday's post that said in part: . . . For example...

I've already noted here the potential crisis the US Catholic bishops face in taking a public stance against the Trump administration's desire at minimum to cut back on funding to NGOs, including nominally Catholic programs, that have woke objectives. On January 28, immediately after Trump's imitial announcemnt of that policy, Catholic Charities, a major recipient of this funding, urged the Trump administration to “rethink” its pause on federal funding for executive departments, noting the “millions of Americans who rely on this life-giving support.” . . . “For more than a century, the Catholic Charities network has worked with the government to care for poor and vulnerable people in every community in the U.S., and we continue to be eager to work with government to care for our neighbors in need,” [Catholic Charities CEO Kerry Alys] Robinson said. “We strongly urge the administration to rethink this decision.” On the other hand, there's some question a...

Sen Lindsey Graham announces he's been red-pilled over USAID. and at 1:51 above, he says, Samantha [Power] has been texting me morning, noon, and night, Samantha, look in the mirror! The reason USAID is going to cease to exist as it did before is because it should! Sundance at Conservative Treehouse says "We can officially say this moment achieves ‘peak Graham.’" Graham has in fact been a chief advcocate of USAID up to this point, when Elon Musk has suddenly exposed the grift and Graham realizes he'd better get on the right side of the issue. Sounds very fishy https://t.co/68ToeBRN6d — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 9, 2025 I've looked at Samantha Power's career now and then, and irrespective of the latest allegations of her net worth, she's always struck me as among the privileged for being special. According to Wikipedia , Samantha Jane Power (born September 21, 1970) is an Irish-American journalist, diplomat, and government official ...

A while ago, there was a saying about people like Paris Hilton. whom nobody could understand what they had done to make themselves famous, that they were "famous for being well known". What I've been noticing in recent years is a phenomenon of people who are, or were, privileged for being special. Nobody can quite figure out what made, or makes, them privileged. Take the example of Rebecca Lobach, the pilot of the helicopter that by current general consensus was at fault for flying into a regional jet on January 29. The jet was following the controller's instructions, at the precise altitude and course it should have been. The helicopter appears to have been above its authorized altitude and even slightly off course. The initial news the morning after the crash had to do with the loss of 14 prominent figure skaters on the jet : U.S. Figure Skating, the organization that serves as the sport's national governing body, confirmed the plane's passeng...

Yesterday I posted about indications that very powerful influences were able to insert themselves into the Army's press releases about the Reagan National collision January 29, especially that the family was able to override Army policy and delay release of the pilot's name an additional two days, as well as to include a family-written eulogy of the pilot in the Army's own press release, despite the strong likelihood that that pilot played a major role in the collision. It's hard to avoid thinking similar influences have been delaying the release of other key information about the crash. As of Janary 31, over a week ago , The National Transportation Safety Board has recovered the flight “black box” from the downed Black Hawk helicopter, that appears to be undamaged, board member Todd Inman said. Yesterday, the NTSB has recovered a flight data recorder “in good condition” from the accident, he said, though it will not be releasing information from that device ...

As soon as I heard the news last week that the Army was withholding the name of the Black Hawk helicopter pilot involved in the Reagan National collision, my antennae went up. There had to be family money involved. Here's the problem: On Saturday the U.S. Army released the name of the second pilot—reported to have been pilot in command—of the Blackhawk helicopter that collided with American Airlines flight 5342 over the Potomac River, killing 67 people. This was a marked departure from Army policy that states “Names, city, and state of deceased will be withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification.” This was the standard process used to identify the other two members of the Army’s flight crew, Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Eaves, and Staff Sgt. Ryan O'Hara. . . . Yet, in an unusual deviation, the Army selectively withheld Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach’s identity for an additional two days. When her name was finally released over the weekend, the Army included a family...