Show Horse Or Work Horse?

Last month, Capt. Lobach escorted fashion designer @RalphLauren at the White House when he received his Presidential Medal of Freedom. https://t.co/GyTGMliwaI pic.twitter.com/fDMX5W3m40

— Jim LaPorta (@JimLaPorta) February 1, 2025

Over the weekend, the Army finallly released the name of the third pilot -- apparently the one at the controls -- of the helicopter that crashed into the regional jet Wednesday evening, killing 67.

At the request of and in coordination with the family, the Army is releasing the name of the third Soldier who died while performing a training mission near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Jan. 29.

Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, served as an aviation officer (15A) in the regular Army from July 2019 to January 2025. She has no deployments. She was assigned to the 12th Aviation Battalion, Ft Belvoir, Va.

It turns out that the three-day delay, which was atrributed to the request of the family, must have been to give them time to scrub not only her own social media, but that of the rest of the family as well. Even so, what remains -- the image at left is apparently an official Army photo -- isn't helpful. It shows her all tricked out as a helo pilot on the flight deck having just a giggly good time. The alt media was quick to see the incongruity of the giggle glam and the tragedy.

The official Army bio at the link above says that she served for her whole career in the the 12th Aviation Battalion, Ft Belvoir, whose mission is to ferry VIPs around in gold-striped helicopters, a plum assignment in itself, but other references point out that during some part of this time, she also served as a social aide in the White House. According to Wikipedia,

A White House social aide is a United States Armed Forces officer assigned to attend to the personal needs of visiting dignitaries at the White House and to facilitate interactions with the President of the United States and the First Lady of the United States. White House social aides were first appointed in 1902; as of 2014, there were 45 such officers.

. . . White House social aides report to a coordinator in the office of the White House Social Secretary. Their duties include managing "guests who attend social functions at the White House, [facilitating] interactions with the president and first lady and [escorting] dignitaries". In the past, this has included entertaining single guests, such as providing dance companions; initiating small talk with lonely guests during teas; directing the flow of traffic at receiving lines; and greeting visitors.

It isn't clear how this related to her duties as a helicopter pilot, or whether her status as a White House social aide superseded her regular tasks at Ft Belvoir. On the other hand, it does appear that the Army thought she was at least an attractive window display for the White House and VIPs who needed helicopter rides in Washington.

But this comes as the collision investigation focuses more closely on "some sort of elevation issue”, in Secretary Hegseth's words. According to the NTSB Saturday, the regional jet's flight recorder showed an altitude of 325 feet plus-minus 25 feet. This would be consistent with the jet's landing pattern at the airport, while the maximum altitude for the helicopter there should have been 200 feet. A cooment to the post on X embedded above said,

Altitude control is a basic fundamental flying skill for any pilot. Its like staying between the lines on the road. Whoever was flying failed to control altitude (and course) properly. ATC sounds like it will be a contributing factor.

— Lumpschlevot (@Lumpschlevot) February 2, 2025

Whatever the reason Cpt Lobach's family may have had to withhold release of her name, and whatever reason the Army may bave had to cooperste with this. it does nobody any favors. It simply feeds the impression that Cpt Lobach had been receiving special treatment throughout her career and in the wake of the tragedy, when the evidence that's beginning to emerge suggests that the special treatment was part of the accident's cause.

On Saturday, the NTSB said that although the flight data recorder-cockpit voice recorder on the helicopter had been recovered, it would take time to repair water damage. But in the same press conference, the NTSB spokesman said there had been dissagreement among the investigators over even releasing the jet's altitude data, suggesting that what eventually comes out will be even more damaging to Cpt Lobach's reputation.

Not to mention the incredibly bad look for the Army. At minimum, Secretary Hegseth is probably going to have to get rid of the gold-striped VIP helos and their show horse pilots.

"What Is Going On With The FAA ATC System Here Domestically In The United States?"

This is the question Juan Browne, the highly respected aviation YouTuber, asked in the post above nine months ago. He continued,

In the last couple of days, we've had no less than three to four major incidents that, if we continue to perform at this level, will eventually lead to disaster.

He was clearly correct in his prediction. Whatever the efficient cause of Wednesday night's collision -- and based on the information that's slowly dribbling out, a politically connected DEI helicopter pilot may be partially responsible -- the formal cause seems to be the long-festering disorder within the air traffic control system, run by the FAA. If this particular glitch didn't cause a disaster, the next one would have.

Browne discusses in detail three of the incidents he refers to. The most interesting for us here took place on April 18 last year at Reagan National, where Wednesday night's collision also took place. He begins his discussion of this at 7:31. It involved two separate controllers unwittingly putting two different flights onto a collision course on the same runway. The controllers catch the conflict at the last minute and scream "STOP! STOP! STOP!" to both flights, luckily averting a collision. Browne comments at 10:39,

There was a lot of background noise on the radio frequency of the tower there. Are there distractions going on in the tower? Are these conversations that are going on in the tower during operations, are they operational conversations, or are they distractions going on in the tower during operations?

Apparently he feels that's comment enough, he's pointing out an unserious atmosphere in the tower that just contributed to a near-disaster, the sort of thing that the FAA appears to tolerate routinely. In a post at PJ Media, Matt Margolis points out,

In the wake of the deadly midair collision at Reagan National Airport, it’s important that we reassess our nation’s aviation safety standards. President Trump said on Thursday that safety standards declined under Joe Biden, and let me tell you, he is right.

To illustrate this point, let’s look at his first nominee to lead the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Phil Washington.

During his confirmation hearing, Washington faced significant scrutiny over his lack of knowledge of essential aviation regulations. Washington struggled to provide answers to a series of basic questions that one would expect from someone nominated for the position of FAA administrator. For instance, when asked about the airspace that requires an ADS-B transponder, Washington admitted, “Not sure I can answer that question right now.”

. . . Washington, acknowledging his lack of expertise, often replied, “Senator, I’m not a pilot.” This admission underscored a troubling disconnect for a nominee expected to oversee the regulatory framework governing aviation safety and operations.

Margolis went on to cite a CNN report that, if confirmed, Washington would be the first black permanent administrator of the agency. According to Just the News,

The Obama-era changes to air traffic control system hiring has come under scrutiny in the past by prospective air traffic controllers and Congress alike for prioritizing diversity over merit, which critics say could compromise safety.

One prospective Air Traffic Control Specialist sued in 2015, alleging that the Obama FAA discriminated in its admissions process for air traffic controller training by designing a questionnaire that prioritized minority candidates over others, even those who had completed the FAA’s Collegiate Training Initiative (CTI).

. . . The prospective air traffic controller who filed the lawsuit, Andrew Brigida, said the FAA’s hiring practices, the air traffic controller staffing shortages, and the air disaster that occurred on Wednesday are all interrelated.

Asked by the Telegraph in the aftermath of the crash whether the years of diversity programs would ensure that an accident was likely to happen eventually, Brigida said, “Yes, that’s kind of accurate.” Brigida added that “There have been plenty of stories of near miss events that have been the cause of staffing issues. It’s surprising that it’s gone on this long without being properly recognised by the government.”

The UK Daily Mail has additional information,

The FAA dropped a skills-based system for hiring air traffic controllers and instead based it on a 'biographical assessment' under the Obama administration.

Brigida, who is white, alleged that he was discriminated against based purely on his race and was the reason his application was knocked back.

The Arizona state graduate was turned down for a job with the agency even though he had passed his training exam with full marks, the suit claims.

The FAA has struggled in recent years with staffing issues following pandemic-era layoffs and has yet to fully recover.

. . . Following the horrifying scenes on Wednesday night, it has since emerged that there was staffing issues inside the control tower of Ronald Reagan National Airport.

The FAA have found in their preliminary report that it was 'not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic'.

On Wednesday, an air traffic controller was left to handle both helicopter traffic and manage planes - which should have been a divided duty - according to The New York Times.

Those tasks are usually handled between two people from 10am until 9:30pm, according to the report.

Legacy media was aghast at Trump's suggestion on Thursdsy that DEI wass behind the disaster, but it's looking more and more that DEI was both the formal cause -- the FAA's inadequate supervision of the air traffic control system due to inability to staff its operations fully -- and the efficient cause -- an incompetent DEI helicopter pilot -- of the disaster.

The Swiss Cheese Model

As an avid viewer of Air Disasters reruns on the Smithsonian Channel, I've been trying to soak up every detail about the Washington regional jet-Army helicopter collision. But one comment by a Fox News guest sums up the whole situation:

"It's our system that is bad and that's what has to be looked at. To be honest with you… we need to take a bulldozer to the front of the FAA. This is bad management, and it's putting us at risk," Boyd Group International President Mike Boyd said Thursday in reaction on "Mornings with Maria."

"We had two flying machines run into each other over the Potomac. That is the FAA's job to avoid those things," he argued. "We have all kinds of human issues here. But the fact is, we've had near-miss after near-miss for the past 20 years. Now we've had a collision. The collision is the responsibility of the FAA and the air traffic control system. Somebody failed."

Until late yesterday afternoon, the focus was on the Army helicopter and why it was 200 feet above its assigned altitude -- then another crash seems to have derailed the whole discussion. But Mr Boyd has correctly refocused the question: there are human issues in place, humans make mistakes. But it's the FAA's job to design and implement a system that eliminates human mistakes.

The problem with the Washington collision wasn't that the air traffic controllers were overworked, or were hired via DEI, or that an incompetent pilot was flying the helicopter, or that there should have been four people on the crew instead of three, or that the lane for helicopter flights down the Potomac crossed the approach pattern for Reagan National Airport; the problem was all these factors working in combination. According to Wikipedia,

The Swiss cheese model of accident causation is a model used in risk analysis and risk management. It likens human systems to multiple slices of Swiss cheese, which has randomly placed and sized holes in each slice, stacked side by side, in which the risk of a threat becoming a reality is mitigated by the differing layers and types of defenses which are "layered" behind each other. Therefore, in theory, lapses and weaknesses in one defense do not allow a risk to materialize (e.g. a hole in each slice in the stack aligning with holes in all other slices), since other defenses also exist (e.g. other slices of cheese), to prevent a single point of failure.

Thus yesterday afternoon, the FAA very belatedly took the step of closing the path for helicopters to fly down the Potomac in conflict with the Reagan National approach pattern:

NEW: With the support of @POTUS and in consultation with the @SecDef, effective today, the @FAANews will restrict helicopter traffic around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport airport.

Today’s decision will immediately help secure the airspace near Reagan Airport, ensuring… pic.twitter.com/Oo6B9H8z8S

— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) January 31, 2025

This simply elminates one of the holes in the series of slices that allowed the collision to happen. But that doesn't mean there aren't other holes that need to be closed as well. Via CBS News,

The permitted flight ceiling on the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport is 200 feet – a crucial ceiling for keeping the heavy flow of military helicopters safely clear of the steady commercial aircraft traffic into and out of the nation's capital.

Data from FlightRadar24, which tracks and records aircraft data for most flights across the U.S., showed the helicopter's last estimated altitude was about 400 feet when it crashed. The jet's altitude was about 375 to 400 feet, according to data from FlightAware and FlightRadar24.

"They're military pilots; they're familiar with the routes," [former NTSB investigator Doug] Feith said. "Why is it on this day, on that flight, they were [as much as] 150 to 200 feet higher than they knew they should be?"

That's just another hole in the Swiss cheese. If the helicopter lane crossed the airport flight path, but the helicopter crew had stayed at the prescribed altitude, the collision wouldn't have happened, either. This focuses attention on the crew.

The United States Army released the information of two of the three soldiers/pilots onboard the Black Hawk that flew into a regional airplane, crashing into the Potomac River. Reuters said two of the names were released, but the Army refused to provide the third.

Now people want to know what's going on and they're demanding transparency.

A Reuters report quoted at the link said it was done at the request of the soldier's family, but this raises inevitable questions about whether the third soldier had something to do with the helicopter being at the wrong altitude. If the family hoped to avoid oppobrium at their son or daughter, or at the family name or background, if such a blunder was involved, this will prove only a temporary fix. Beyond that, according to an experienced Blackhawk pilot and crew chief,

The single-greatest error in this accident was the decision to fly without a second Crew Chief on the left-hand side of the Blackhawk, who could have provided an extra set of eyes to “look out-and-up” to see the approaching American Airlines Passenger plane.

. . . Flight Unit Leadership failed to recognize the need for a second Crew Chief in the Mission Planning and Risk Assessment Process. This is where either incompetence, or DEI (or both), may have come into play. This was certainly poor leadership.

. . . The Flight Unit Commanders must share the blame, and they’re still alive! There is a 12th Aviation Battalion commander of that B Company, and I don’t know who that is, but this individual was the first leader in the chain of events for the Mission Plan and Risk Assessment to get signed off and approved. This B Company commander should be asked why they did not enforce a second Crew Chief to be on that flight.

So there were at least three slices of Swiss cheese whose holes lined up to cause the accident. The helicopter lane down the Potomac crossed the landing flight pattern for Reagan National, and near-misses were common. It was only a matter of time until a helicopter would fly high enough to hit a civilian airliner. The helicopter in this case apparently had a pilot wih shaky experience who in fact did fly too high. But on top of that, the helicopter unit commander failed to recognize that the crew needed additional supervision.

The factors contributing to this appear to have included extreme complacency at the FAA, which neglected to address the conflicting flight patterns near the airport for decades, as well as the apparent distraction within both Army and FAA management as they were forced to focus on DEI in hiring and performance appraisal. At the Department of Transportation, there was the additional problem at the cabinet level that the secretaries in previous administrations of both parties were patronage hacks, Elaine Chao, who is Mitch McConnell's wife, and Pete Buttigieg, who was appointed to appease the gay wing of the Democrats.

Given the Trump administration's track record so far, I would expect heads to roll, and quickly.

Let's Filter Through What's Come Out About The DC Crash

So far, I think the best single source on the Washington, DC collision of a regional jet and an Army helicopter is the YouTube updates by longtime pilot Juan Browne on his blancolirio channel. I linked his first one in yesterday's post. Embedded above is an update from yesterday afternoon. I'll refer to several other sources that tend to confirm or expand his views in this post as well.

It's worth noting that American Airlines CEO Robert Isom iossued a preliminary statement at a press conference yesterday,

“At this time, we don’t know why the military aircraft came into the path of the PSA aircraft,” Isom said at a Thursday morning press conference.

Isom said in a staff note Thursday that the National Transportation Safety Board would be the “sole source of truth going forward, and accuracy is of the utmost importance.”

PSA Airlines is an American Airlines subsidiary and one of its regional carriers. American Eagle is how American Airlines brands its regional flights.

This corporate position is non-controversial -- every indication is that the PSA flight was on an approved path to land at Runway 33, while the helicopter ran into it after telling the controller that it saw the flight and would avoid it. The highly respected "Miracle on the Hudson" pilot Sully Sullenberger told ABC News yesterday morning at 0:51,

What seems apparent from the Air Traffic Control communications is that the airplanes were able to see each other, at least one was able to see the other, and the air traffic controller was able to relieve himself of the requirement to have him separate the airplanes, and the pilots would have to separate from each other visually by identifying the other airecraft and stgayng a safe distance away.

In other words, there seems to be general agreement that for whatever reason, the Army helicopter was responsible for the collision. One credible explanation for why this happened is given by another experienced pilot YouTuber below. He notes that there were two regional flights in line to land right after each other, the PSA flight, JTA 5342, and an American flight, 3130, which was second in line. He explains at 2:11:

This is not the final word on it, but I think what happened was, it was at night, there's several airplanes lined up, there is that Blue Streak [JTA] 5342, which is the CRJ that they ran into, right behind them just a few miles is American 3130. Everybody has their lights on as they're coming in, I believe the helicopter looked at the American 3130 and said, "I've got the traffic in sight," and they never saw the airplane, the CRJ, that was right next to them. That's my conjecture on what happens.

Juan Browne in the video embedded at the top of this post goes into more detail on the overall problem. At 2:59:

The problem is going beak to beak at night, the lights of the RJ tend to blend in with the city lights behind you. even tbhough the RJ is a little bit above the helicopter. Another problem when you're going head to head with each other if there's no lateral movement in the windscreen, that light is very hard to detect. Now eventually, the RJ has to make the left hand turn to land on Runway 33, and this puts the helicopter onto the right side of the RJ. Now very late into this transition, the tower controller here at the airport asks the helicopter, "Do you have the RJ jet in sight?" to which the helicopter responds, "Yes, we have the RJ in sight, request visual separation." That hands off the responsibility of the separation of these two aircraft to that of the helicopter pilot. The ATC then asks the helicpter pilot to pass behind the RJ, to which the helicopoter loilot responds, "affirmative", but instead, he runs right into the RJ.

Browne then goes into the separate question of night vision goggles and other subjects, but at 8:53, he returns to the question of American 3130, the flight landing behind the collision RJ:

There's another aircraft behind the RJ that was involved in the collision, another American Airlines jet 3130 . . . . this second aircraft behind the RJ may have been the aircraft the helicopter mistakenly picked up on, or it could have been one of the aircraft that were taking off. It's more likely than not that the crew of the helicopter picked up on the wrong target to see and avoid.

Browne mentions in passing another question that's raised by the radar data leading up to the collision: the maximum altitude for helicopters in this area is 200 feet above the Potomac. However, the helicopter collided with the RJ at the RJ's authorized altitude of 400 feet. The data shows that the helicopter rose from its authorized 200 feet -- which, if it had stayed at that altitude, would have avoided any collision -- to hit the RJ at 400 feet over a period of seconds just before the collision.

Although Browne notes this, he doesn't say anything else about it in this video, but it may be a very important additional data point. So far, I haven't seen any other commnentator mention it. A Fox News report does mention it here. Trump also commented earlier today:

President Trump took to his Truth Social platform Friday morning with a "not really too complicated" potential reason for the tragic DC plane-helicopter crash: The Army chopper was flying too high.

"The Blackhawk [sic] helicopter was flying too high, by a lot," he wrote. "It was far above the 200 foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???"

There are several other possible contributing factors, including understaffing at the Reagan National control tower and the generally crowded airspace over Washington, so that there had been a close call with another helicopter the previous day:

Another plane heading to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport almost crashed into a helicopter on Tuesday night, the night before an American Airlines flight collided with a military helicopter and plunged into the Potomac River.

Republic Airways Flight 4514 was forced to abort its first landing attempt at the airport on Tuesday after Air Traffic Control warned that a helicopter was in its vicinity. The Embraer E-175 executed a go-around maneuver, and safely landed a few minutes later, CNN reported.

Nevertheless, understaffing and crowded airspace over Washington were conditions that had existed for years before the accident, while the information that's coming out suggests that the helicopter crew made critical errors that other crews seem not to have made, over the same period of years. This would also apply to the question of night vision goggles -- even if they had some effect on visibilty, crews had been able to compensate for them over the same period of years. This suggests that questions of individual judgment, competence, and training are in play.

Regular viewers of the Smithsonian Channel series Air Disasters know that investigations often go into the personnel and training records of the crews involved in accidents, and inadequate training and performance do sometimes factor in as causes. The problem that needs to be ruled out is whether the chain of command should have been aware that the crew involved, based on available records and other information, was not qualified to fly that mission.

This Will Be A Real Test

NOW — Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy:

“Whether it was air traffic control, whether it was military aircraft, helicopters or the American flight, everything was standard in the lead up to the crash … Something happened here.” pic.twitter.com/ojRVAf34ZO

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) January 30, 2025

A YouTube commentator that I trust on aviation matters, Juan Browne on the blancolirio channel, a working airline pilot with both military and civilian experience, has a good video with graphics. At 0:50, he says,

. . . the [Regional Jet] flies the approach to this Runway, 1, the long runway, and then sidesteps around here to a left dogleg entry to Runway 33, the relatively short runway at about 5200 feet long here at Washington DC, a very demanding approach. This crew is focused on this approach. This midair collision occurred just below 400 feet above the ground. The National Guard helicopter, believed to be eithet as UH60 or VH60, was presumably operating out of Joint Base Bolling. . . . They have this procedure where they can dart across the Potomac River right across the final approach for these airlines, this is an approved procedure.

He then narrates over the video of the collision, in which the helicopter approaches the regional jet from its left and crashes into its right side. He continues,

Now let's review the ATC data. Let'sf first check this out from ADSB Exchange, where the two aircraft came together. So here you can see the regional jet doing the sidestep maneuver to Runway 33, so kind of a left dogleg base entry, this is all done visually to Runway 33, and the helicopter coming out of Bolling and crossing right into its path. . . . The tower at DCA sayhs, "Pat 25 [the helicopter], do you have the RJ in sight?" Now I believe the helicopters are operating on a separate frequency from the CRJ, so I don't believe the CRJ hears the helicopters, but all this is being controlled by the tower there at DCA, so the tower says, "Pat 25 [the helicopter], do you have the CRJ in sight?" Pat 25 responds, "Have the CRJ in sight, request visual separation," standard procedure, and then the tower clears Pat 25 to pass behind the CRJ. For whatever reason, the helicopter did not see and avoid the CRJ and ran right into him.

. . . Looking at the track log, the CRJ was on a perfectly stabilized approach. In other words, the CRJ was exactly where he was supposed to be, doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing.

WUSA9 has an intefrview with Doug Feith, a retired NTSB investigator and a regular on the Air Disasters program on the Smithsonian Channel. At 6:20, he says

The question that I would ask as an investigator, of the military, is, "What are your procedures, especially in an environment where we have high density traffic flow? You're mixing civilian and military operations in this corridor." I grew up here, in Maryland, so I'm very familiar with the area, I've lived there for most of my life, I've seen these operations, I've flown down the Potomac River. It is busy, and you're constantly listening for other aircraft on frequency to see where they are and where they're going, just because it's all about this term that we use in aviation called "situational awareness". I want to know who's in my environment. The question is, was there that kind of communication, interaction bdetween military and civilian, and then of course, where were the controllers?

What we're starting to hear from experienced observers is that there was a procedure that the military helicopter, on a training mission, was supposed to follow, and it had instructions from the tower controller to avoid and pass behind the regional jet, which it didn't follow.

Air accident investigations of the type Mr Feith led typically take years. He decries a culture of instant gratification in the interview, but the new Trump administration is setting expectations for a culture of accountability. In the military, situations like this develop in an environment, and the chain of command is held responsible for the environment. A reasonable conclusion from the circumstances we've learned so far is that there was a trainee pilot on the helicopter who apparently shouldn't have been there, and 64 civilians were killed as a result.

Secretary Hegseths initial message to the Department of Defense said, in the context of rebuilding the military,

All of this will be done with a focus on lethality, meritocracy, accountability, standards, and readiness.

We're going to have to see how this plays out, and fairly soon. Among other things, dereliction of duty is a crime in the military. Somebody allowed this situation to develop.

Greenland? Manifest Destiny!

I ran across this video by a UK YouTuber that gives an entertaining perspective on Trump;s current effort to buy Greenland. The key takeaway is that acquiring Greenland has been a US strategic objective since 1867, when Secretary of State William H Seward attempted to purchase it from Denmark along with his purchase of Alaska from Russia. (He also wanted to buy Canada from the UK.) According to Wikipedia,

Since the 19th century, the United States has considered, and made, several attempts to purchase the island of Greenland from Denmark, as it did with the Danish West Indies in 1917. Internal discussions within the United States government about acquiring Greenland notably occurred in 1867, 1910, 1946, 1955, 2019 and 2025 and acquisition has been advocated by American secretaries of state William H. Seward and James F. Byrnes, privately by vice president Nelson Rockefeller, and publicly by president Donald Trump, among others. After World War II, the United States secretly offered to buy Greenland; public discussion of purchasing the island occurred during Trump's first term in 2019 and again after Trump's 2024 reelection as part of his Greater United States policy.

This largely unrecognized history tends to undermine the current accepted view that "Manifest Destiny" was a doctrine limited to the 19th and early 20th century and controversial at that. For instance, at Britannica:

Manifest Destiny, in U.S. history, the supposed inevitability of the continued territorial expansion of the boundaries of the United States westward to the Pacific and beyond. Before the American Civil War (1861–65), the idea of Manifest Destiny was used to validate continental acquisitions in the Oregon Country, Texas, New Mexico, and California. The purchase of Alaska after the Civil War briefly revived the concept of Manifest Destiny, but it most evidently became a renewed force in U.S. foreign policy in the 1890s, when the country went to war with Spain, annexed Hawaii, and laid plans for an isthmian canal across Central America.

. . . Some found the opinion intriguing, but others were simply irritated. The Whig Party sought to discredit Manifest Destiny as belligerent as well as pompous, beginning with Massachusetts Rep. Robert Winthrop’s using the term to mock Pres. James K. Polk’s policy toward Oregon.

Britannica then argues that the runup to the Civil War and its aftermath led to the end of a first phase of Manifest Destiny, which resumed only as the influence of Alfred Thayer Mahan's theory of sea power refocused US interests on the Pacific, which led to the annexation of Hawaii as a US Territory in 1898, as well as the acquisitions of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico as territories after the Spanish-American War. But Britannica concludes that it's a phenomenon that came and went:

Those who promoted it might have done so from venal or virtuous motives, and those who opposed it were seemingly vindicated by the Civil War in their grim warnings about the steep costs of a spreading imperium, but the events of American expansionism were a tale more than twice-told in the course of history.

William H Seward, as noted above, bought Alaska from Russia in 1867 and was nearly able to acquire both Greenland and much of the Danish West Indies from Denmark soon afterward:

Finding Denmark considerably more amenable to selling than the current president, Seward was wheeling and dealing with his counterparts in Copenhagen. He came to terms very similar to the Alaskan bottom line (the enormous, erstwhile Russian colony had cost the U.S. $7.2 million): $7.5 million for much of the Danish West Indies, only to have Congress scuttle the treaty.

It was around this time that Seward also began to openly covet Greenland. As with their Caribbean holdings, the Danes appeared primed to sell their northern island possessions, as well. Seward put the power of the State Department to work at once, commissioning scientists and political partisans to produce a report on the virtues of Greenland.

. . . Congress refused to consider buying Denmark’s West Indies (later purchased and renamed the U.S. Virgin Islands), let alone take seriously Seward’s pitch for Greenland.

According to History.com, the US continued to be interested in the Virgin Islands:

Negotiations started up again in the 1890s but fizzled with the onset of the Spanish-American War in 1898.

. . . The U.S. was a larger imperial power now, with a greater interest in expanding. It had also set its sights on building the Panama Canal, and this made it even more interested in purchasing St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix in order to secure the future canal’s route. Again, another secretary of state (this time John Hay) negotiated a treaty with Denmark. The Senate ratified the treaty in 1902, but this time, the Danish parliament rejected it.

In 1915, the fear of German takeover motivated the U.S. to make another try for the islands. Especially after the sinking of the Lusitania, President Woodrow Wilson and Secretary of State Robert Lansing feared that Germany might annex Denmark and launch more attacks from the Danish West Indies. Danish leaders resisted ceding the islands and their majority-black inhabitants to the racially-segregated United States.

Angry at this, Lansing insinuated that if Denmark didn’t sell the U.S. the islands, it just might go and seize them to prevent Germany for getting to them. It was a bullying tactic, and it worked.

Eager to prevent a U.S. military attack (Denmark was currently a neutral party in World War I), Denmark negotiated a treaty with the U.S. that President Wilson signed on January 16, 1917. On March 31, 1917, Denmark formally transferred governance over the islands to the U.S., and the U.S. reciprocated by paying Denmark $25 million in gold coin.

The US has in fact continued with expansionist spurts via initiatives from presidents of both parties, from a variety of motives, and often concluding the deals with actual military action, as in the Mexican and Spanish-American Wars, or the threat of it, as with Denmark. The idea of acquiring Greenland is nothing new, but it looks as though Trump is now determined to follow through.

US Bishops Respond To Vance's Criticism

Catholic Charities shocking video instructing Illegals on how to avoid ICE.

You tax dollars fund this sh*t. They receive millions in Government grants. pic.twitter.com/LtG0OLGYwr

— Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) January 27, 2025

Via Catholic News Agency:

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on Sunday argued that its long-standing refugee program is a “work of mercy” after Vice President JD Vance criticized the bishops’ positions on immigration issues.'

. . . The USCCB on Sunday argued that its own work with refugees is part of a “long history” of Catholic advocacy for vulnerable migrants.

“In 1980, the bishops of the United States began partnering with the federal government to carry out this service when Congress created the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP),” the bishops said in the statement, which did not mention Vance.

“Every person resettled through USRAP is vetted and approved for the program by the federal government while outside of the United States,” they said.

“In our agreements with the government, the USCCB receives funds to do this work; however, these funds are not sufficient to cover the entire cost of these programs.”

“Nonetheless, this remains a work of mercy and ministry of the Church,” the bishops said.

The USCCB statement didn't directly mention Vance. However, in his exchange with Margaret Brennan, Vance said, in reference to USRAP, via the link,

“In fact, we know that there are cases of people who allegedly were properly vetted and then were literally planning terrorist attacks in our country,” Vance argued. “So clearly, not all of these foreign nationals have been properly vetted.”

In part, this may come down to which program is which and who's paying for what. There continue to be questions about whether programs that come through Catholic Charities are consistent with federal policies if the money going to Catholic Charities for the particular programs is federal, a problem that I raised in yesterday's post with regard to Springfield, OH. But today I saw an equivalent problem in Milwaukee:

Catholic Charities Milwaukee is outrageously advising illegal aliens on refusing to comply with ICE, demanding rights they do not have, lying about U.S. laws, requesting help from foreign officials in undermining immigration law enforcement, and more.

The infamous video in question begins with a woman, Barb Graham, introducing herself as “an attorney at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in the Refugee and Immigration Services Program.” She claims to be helping illegal aliens to understand their “rights” if ICE comes to arrest them. “All people living in the United States, including people who are undocumented, have certain rights under the United States Constitution,” she asserts.

This is simply false. Illegal aliens do not have constitutional rights, because they are not citizens. . . . Foreign nationals who violate our laws to be in the United States do not have constitutional rights. And illegal aliens who are dangerous criminals certainly do not have constitutional rights that prevent them from being deported.

. . . Again, foreign nationals who have committed crimes — and, as Homan has emphasized, every illegal has committed a crime by being here in America — do not have constitutional rights, and ICE can indeed arrest illegal aliens without judicial warrants. The Trump administration needs to investigate Catholic Charities Milwaukee for its illegal and outrageous actions. After all, obstructing an ICE arrest is a federal crime.

Again, a key technical factor here is whether the federal money going to Catholic Charities is being spent according to the federal guidelines. Encouraging people to violate the law is probably not within the guidelines, and misinforming people about their rights under the law is probably not, either.

I notice just this morning that the Trump administration has temporarily suspended all federal grants and loans pendiong review:

This strategic pause, orchestrated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is designed to facilitate a comprehensive review of federal financial assistance programs, ensuring that taxpayer dollars are utilized efficiently and in accordance with the administration’s objectives.

. . . While the suspension is comprehensive, it does not affect Social Security, Medicare, or other programs that provide direct assistance to individuals.

Federal agencies have been instructed to identify and review all financial assistance programs and report back to the OMB by February 10, detailing any programs subject to the pause and identifying any legally mandated actions or deadlines.

The federal money that goes to the Catholic Church, which amounts to a little over $100 million a year, may be small enough that it escapes initial scrutiny, especially since the primary target of the pause is grants connected with DEI, gender ideology, and the Green New Deal. But there's an additional problem of programs that simply give the Church a bad look.

After a raid on Tren de Aragua apartments in San Antonio, Catholic Charities had to clarify its role:

We first broke the story this weekend with an exclusive pre-dawn video when almost 300 apartments were hit near the San Antonio International Airport.

Catholic Charities officials in San Antonio clarified their role in assisting migrants today.

Antonio Fernandez explained that Catholic Charities has a contract with the Office of Refugee Resettlement or ORR to manage the funds they have for migrants specifically from warn-torn countries. Catholic Charities then helps those in the ORR program with basic needs.“We provide housing for refugees from Ukraine, Afghanistan, and other nations,” he said. “However, those who arrive through the southern border without proper legal status do not qualify for our housing assistance.”

The Milwaukee video has also brought unwanted attention to Catholic Charities from politicians besides Vance:

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) called for Catholic Charities USA to be defunded in a post on X in which he flagged DOGE, President Trump’s newly minted Department of Government Efficiency.

In a follow-up statement to The Post, Burchett took aim at the charitable group for playing politics on the immigrant crisis.

“These nongovernmental organizations and Catholic charities have pushed a mind-blowing number of illegals into our country over the past four years. It’s happening on both sides of the border. They’re using your tax dollars, and they’re not doing anybody any favors,” he said.

He added: “Our priority should be finding the 300,000-plus kids these NGOs and Catholic charities lost, not giving legal advice to people who broke the law and are inside the US illegally.”

I keep harping on crisis management here. The US bishops need to recognize that they're facing a potential crisis that could reach the level of the child sexual abuse crisis of the early 2000s that brought the careers of several US cardinals to an ignominious end. If there's a public perception that the bishops aren't with the program of restricting illegal immigration -- a public duty entirely consistent with the Catechism and other teachings of the Church -- the bishops will be responsible for another serious blow to their prestige.

For now, it looks like at least some spokespeople for Catholic Charities are following the right course, as in San Antonio, of transparancy in explaining the actual programs, showing that they're in conformance with the law, and doing anything possible to eliminate the impression that they're sheltering or assisting lawbreakers.

Vice President Vance, a good Catholic, has taken what looks like a productive approach in urging the bishops to be "good partners" in this effort. They'll help themselves most by consistently explaining how their assistance programs conform to the law and further the overall social goals expressed in the Church's teachings -- especially when they honestly explain what those goals entail.