The Trump administration has ordered the Internal Revenue Service to revoke Harvard University's tax-exempt status. This status allows Harvard to avoid paying income and property taxes, and donations to Harvard provide leftist billionaires with massive tax deductions for charitable contributions. //

As that action gathers steam, the Department of Homeland Security is considering withdrawing Harvard's ability to matriculate foreign students. The concern here is the number of foreign students at Harvard who seem as interested in pro-Hamas demonstrations as they are in attending classes. //

Harvard was told that it had to eradicate the DEI filters it uses in admissions to bring its processes into compliance with federal law and Supreme Court rulings. It was also told to take positive action to suppress what appears to be an official policy of antisemitism, or at least pro-terrorism, by Harvard's administration. Fair dealing and protecting Jewish students from harassment and discrimination were just a bridge too far for Harvard President Alan Garber. "The administration’s prescription goes beyond the power of the federal government," he huffed. "It violates Harvard’s First Amendment rights and exceeds the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI. And it threatens our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge. No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue."

He's missing the point. No one is requiring Harvard to do anything differently. The government is not threatening to take control. It is simply saying that if you wish to receive government benefits, you must comply with the same rules as any other educational institution and with federal law. Harvard's obeisance to DEI, for instance, runs up against two Supreme Court precedents. In Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard, the Supreme Court ruled that race was an impermissible factor in college admissions; see BREAKING: Supreme Court Rejects Race-Based College Admissions – RedState. The 1983 decision, Bob Jones University vs. United States, established that "The Government's fundamental, overriding interest in eradicating racial discrimination in education substantially outweighs whatever burden denial of tax benefits places on petitioners' exercise of their religious beliefs." //

DaveM
3 hours ago
This really isn't that difficult. Harvard allows Jewish students to be harassed on the basis of their religion- which is

1. Illegal at every level of government anywhere in the US. Those4 harassing Jewish students are committing prosecutable acts

2. By failing to provide a safe learning environment Harvard itself is in direct violation of multiple laws at both the Federal and State levels.

The Café Cerés workers wanted things like more concrete scheduling, something that works against a business during lull times. But more than that you see examples of the attempt at enforcing leverage that does not exist. The staff organized with Unite Here Local 17, and the shop plied workers with the pitch to lobby for full-time hours, career paths, and to demand a say in the decision-making of the business. This saw the excitable staffers endure about six months of negotiations with no headway made, and culminating in the lowest of wages – $0.00 per zero hours.

While they pushed these union platforms beyond the usual, the front of house workers at Cerés were earning, with tips, roughly $25-30 hourly, and health insurance that covered 80 percent of their premiums. But this was unacceptable. //

Explain why you would propose a business plan to increase profits and the owner would instead opt to lock the doors. If these people are in fact the free market geniuses they position themselves to be, then how is it they have not undertaken the process of creating a business built on their proposals?

Put up the cash and run your own activist breakfast nook serving gourmet ingredients from socially accepted sources, and rake in the profits. But they know this is not a viable business model. We see this in the way their methods are attempted. They never invest in their own platform; rather, they impose it on those already successful. //

pat
22 minutes ago
Unions are no longer for the worker. Unions exist to pursue their own political agendas and keep the union officials in business. They promise good wages for workers but that is just a bribe for the union officials to keep their political objectives and grift going. They are in it for themselves not their membership. They are no longer needed, they are a hindrance to the well being of workers and the economy. Signed, former union rep who quit in disgust.

Neela Rajendra has been rebranded as “Chief of the Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success.” The move is a clear attempt to bypass the restrictions against DEI now being implemented.

Days after the attempt to force Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth from office over the "Signal-gate" affair, new attacks have been launched to question his judgment and abilities. //

This clown show is going to continue as long as Pete Hegseth is SecDef because he is focused on gutting all the social science nonsense that has infected the Department of Defense since the Obama administration. He is a threat to the "long march through the institutions" that had nearly captured our military, and he must be destroyed.

And the media was running anonymous stories claiming that Hegseth's colleagues thought he should resign; for instance, Trump allies are starting to notice Hegseth's growing pile of mistakes - POLITICO and Concerns about Hegseth’s judgment come roaring back after group chat scandal | CNN Politics.

Pete Hegseth has been targeted for destruction, but he was merely a participant in the chat group. This isn't new. It comes after another failed attempt to claim that Hegseth had briefed Elon Musk on top-secret war plans targeting China.... The question is: Why?

The answer to that, I think, lies in what Hegseth has done since taking the reins at the Pentagon. He has swiftly removed the most problematic military leaders and replaced them with people who support his agenda. He has largely uprooted the massive DEI infrastructure transplanted into the Pentagon during the Obama years and nurtured to maturity under Biden. He has made great strides in focusing the Pentagon on fighting and winning wars. I think the team he is building will begin to repair much of the damage done to the services, particularly the Navy. His willingness to work with DOGE ensures he is making enemies in the right places. As we've noted before, Hegseth is facing a lot of pushback from the status quo in the Department of Defense, and he's not backing down. //

There is no logical reason why Pete Hegseth should resign or be fired over the Signal fiasco, but there is a very logical reason why that blunder is being used to discredit him and try to have him removed. Hegseth is an existential challenge to the left's "long march" through the military. He's taking back ground the left fought hard to gain in turning the military into a giant petrie dish for social experimentation. The team he is putting together holds the promise of being transformative. That is why Pete Hegseth has become the target.

Dear Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences @TheAcademy: “Reagan” is a historic biopic. Were they supposed to include made-up characters? //

Fan-favorite presidential biopic “Reagan” has been disqualified from consideration for the Best Picture Oscar this year — because it failed to meet the judges’ DEI requirements.

The movie, starring Dennis Quaid as the Republican president, couldn’t hit any of the criteria that the Academy for Motion Pictures requires of Best Picture nominations, including that their casts be at least 30% from traditionally underrepresented groups such as minorities, women and the LGBTQ community.

“By these new rules, many previous winners would never have been recognized,” said “Reagan” screenwriter Howard A. Klausner to The Post. //

“We were among 116 films that were eliminated for consideration this year,” Klausner said as the famed awards ceremony was set to be held Sunday evening. “Obviously, there needs to be a conversation about this policy.”

This backtracking from legal decisions pushed by Merrick Garland's hoodlums is a continuation of a long-running battle between the Marxist left that believes everyone is a member of a racial or ethnic group and Americans who believe we rise and fall to a great extent based on our own attributes unless the government intervenes. The left believes that statistical patterns can detect systemic racism even when, in this case, men and women of all races and ethnicities passed and failed the test.

It will take decades to undo the evil done by the left and to unravel this, to quote Chief Justice John Roberts, "sordid business, this divvying us up by race." But Trump and his appointees are making a valiant effort at changing the systems and dropkicking the people who worked them.

James Uthmeier
@JamesUthmeierFL
·
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Today, we filed a lawsuit against Target on behalf of the Florida State Board of Administration.

Target’s efforts to sexualize children caused its stock price to plummet, harming Florida’s retirement fund and putting the retirements of our teachers and first responders at risk:

4:13 PM · Feb 20, 2025

Here's the clever part; the Florida state attorney general says the retailer's woke marketing is hurting the state's retirement fund, by:

misleading shareholders and pushing a harmful, leftist agenda, at the expense of shareholder returns.

While Target told their investors they would keep the company out of controversy to protect the stock price, the retailer engaged in a marketing campaign targeting and sexualizing children. //

This radical campaign predictably caused Target's stock price to plummet, wiping out $10 billion in market value in just 10 days, and those loses put the retirement accounts of Florida's teachers and first responders at unacceptable risk.

The funny part is, the fearmongering aspect is definitely meant to send an emotional argument to other women, but it's also a thrilling idea for themselves.

In the same way people will go to haunted house productions you see pop up during Halloween, these women can safely flirt with danger, comfy pajama pants on and rose in hand, without ever actually being in any real danger at all. It's effectively fear-porn, and "The Handmaid's Tale" allows for a voyeuristic dread of losing their agency, but one you can pause or turn off and walk away from.

These same women will watch the show, agree with each other that they're totally under this threat, then go vote, drive a car, buy things with their own credit cards, and celebrate another day as a single, childless, career woman with girl-power.

Not that there isn't a form of very real anxiety there to fuel this kind of thinking. These women have bought into the feminist lie that happiness only comes through selfishness, and what these women really, truly fear is obligation to something other than themselves. They've been told all their lives that motherhood is slavery, that being a wife is slavery, that having to keep a home is slavery, and feminism has told them that this is what traditionalists want to bring women back to. //

But the grave hypocrisy in all of this is that many of these women still want to have the husband, the children, and the comfortable lifestyle, and they have these things without ever truly being ready to fully commit themselves to it all. They still go to work, and here's the kicker, they outsource their childcare to lower-class women, often immigrants.

And they see no irony in this. //

And here's where you can truly understand the performative nature of these protesters in red. These women watch the show then protest against a scenario that will never come here in America, then totally ignore that actual "Handmaid's Tale" happening in places where Sharia is the law of the land. For women concerned about keeping the patriarchy at bay for themselves and their sisters, they seem to have no interest in traveling into Islamic countries to don their robes and protest there?

Why? Because that actually would be dangerous. There, they very well could be snatched up, reduced to chattel, and used as breeding tools... and not even by the elite. They'd just be giving birth to more cannon fodder for terrorist organizations.

You won't even see them doing these kinds of demonstrations outside mosques here in America, because that would imply they're intolerant or racist, and nothing would horrify a leftist white woman more than being accused of that! //

eburke
4 hours ago edited
You hit this out of the park, Mr. Morse.

It's been said before but it can never be said too often but the greatest threat to America is Affluent, White, Female, Urban Liberals. They live a life few in this world, or even in America, could dream of. They have no real problems so they have to make up "danger" in their lives so they can feel validated.

If we're lucky, they won't find anyone who will lower themselves to procreate with them and their narcissistic sanctimony will just disappear.

Vought has also been a behind-the-scenes leader in opposing critical race theory in churches and school boards and has openly supported forms of Christian nationalism. ///

This is bad?

“The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over”

The Paradox of DEI
DEI programs were instituted to ensure that workplaces and educational institutions reflect a broad spectrum of human diversity. Yet, there's growing concern that these initiatives sometimes overlook those who should benefit from true inclusion—individuals with disabilities, including those on the autism spectrum and other neurodivergent conditions.

Legal Protections vs. DEI Practices
Under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, disabled individuals are entitled to reasonable accommodations. This law was meant to level the playing field, ensuring equal access to education and employment for Americans with disabilities. However, the push for DEI often focuses on demographic diversity in terms of race, gender, and identity, which can conflict with the accommodations needed by people with disabilities. //

The Employment Dilemma
The statistics are telling. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only about 21 percent of disabled Americans were employed in 2022. This stark figure highlights not a lack of skill or ambition but rather systemic barriers, including those inadvertently created by DEI policies.

Real-Life Implications
In practice, this means that schools and companies might prioritize hiring for diversity in a way that doesn't account for the need for individualized learning or working accommodations. There are stories of autistic individuals being passed over for roles or being pushed out of jobs for not being a "cultural fit," a term often used to mask the inability or unwillingness to accommodate an individual's disability. //

The Path Forward
The irony of DEI policies marginalizing people with disabilities while claiming to be inclusive cannot be ignored. True inclusion means adapting our systems to genuinely accommodate all forms of diversity, including disability. //

anon-onh5
4 hours ago
"DEI programs were instituted to ensure that workplaces and educational institutions reflect a broad spectrum of human diversity."

DEI programs were instituted to divide people along racial lines and keep fostering race hatred. FIFY

He traveled to Europe by way of a C-17 cargo plane with a command pod rather than in a Gulfstream executive jet. //

He traveled with his wife and child. This has become something of a standard image of all Trump Cabinet secretaries. Trump has had his grandchild at his desk. Sean Duffy's family is prominent in events. JD Vance's wife and kids travel with him. Musk's kid was at the press conference he held yesterday. The image of family as a central point in life rather than an adjunct to your job is striking when compared to previous administrations, including Trump 1.0. See my colleague Brandon Morse's post on the subject: Elon Musk Is Demonstrating the Best Pro-Life Strategy Right Now and It's Heartwarming to See – RedState. //

I'm old school on uniforms. I think the custom of wearing BDUs (utilities, fatigues, whatever you want to call the field uniform) all the time is horrendous. When I was a young officer, you weren't allowed to wear BDUs off-post. Period. You couldn't go to a fast food place or run an errand on the way home or at lunch wearing BDUs. In my view, if you can't break out the Class A uniform to welcome the SecDef and note the color guard is in dress uniform, then there is no possible occasion that calls for them. But, if you do wear BDUs to greet the SecDef, show him the respect of wearing a fresh set. Meeting the head of the Department of Defense in wrinkled BDUs is a calculated insult because I really don't believe this three-star or his aide are that stupid. //

This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you're willing to greet your boss in wrinkled clothes and allow him to be heckled by dependent wives, you can imagine what else is going on out of sight.

Restructuring The Bureau To Remedy What Ails It Or Turning It Into A Vehicle To Pursue The Malfactors Inside It And Other Aligned Agencies? //

What happened is what Kash Patel is going to need to confront and fix. The daunting task in front of him stems from the fact that the changes in the Bureau have become nearly universal. It worked like a underground weed that spread far and wide before sprouting up through the soil to start taking over separate parts of the organization.

How did that happen? Nowhere in the Government is the phrase “personnel is policy” more true than in the FBI. //

Patel is going to be taking over an organization where a large percentage of its work force, maybe approaching 75%, were hired in the past 15 years — since 2009, the first year of the first term of President Obama.

Not too far into that year the hiring priorities of most federal agencies changed, including at the FBI. Rather than continue the influx of former military, state and local law enforcement, and holders of graduate degrees in engineering, accounting, law, etc., the FBI’s recruiting was adjusted to fit the goal of achieving a work force that “looked like the population at large.” That goal supplanted other priorities that focused on recruiting the “best and brightest” as had for decades been the foundation for FBI hiring. //

The Special Agent work force that began to be created in 2009 was recruited more from college campuses than at any time in FBI history. That’s where a work force that “looked like the population at large” could be most easily found. Since academia has been the breeding ground for 40+ years of crusading social justice warriors — dedicated to recognizing and correcting social injustices of yesteryear more than addressing criminal conduct of yesterday and today — the new agents coming into the Bureau starting in 2010 arrived with that mindset.

But, as was explained to me by FBI Agents in a position to know, many of the new agents had post-college “work experience” with groups such as Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, Southern Poverty Law Center, Innocence Project, Justice Policy Institute, National Women’s Law Center, Human Rights Campaign, NARAL, etc. They came in trained already in how to seek out offenses involving “injustice” rather than focusing on crime.

This remained the hiring paradigm for more than a decade. //

The abuses in the intelligence gathering by the FBI and other parts of the IC community over the past 10 years will likely result in Patel — himself a victim of such efforts — taking steps to severely limit what will be allowed to continue. At the same time a comprehensive analysis will likely be done as to whether intelligence gathering domestically — to the extent it is allowed at all — should be moved to an agency without law enforcement responsibility. Intelligence is to inform decision-making by policy makers — not as a directional device to steer law enforcement in the direction of suspected law breakers. When the latter is allowed, the temptation to abuse that power is simply too great to resist. That is how we find ourselves where we are today. //

“Domestic terrorism” — meaning by citizens and not foreign invaders — has always been a police responsibility. It is nothing more than violent crime. Most domestic terrorism “crimes” are violations of state laws at the same time. Using the massive intelligence gathering capacity of the federal government — often leveraging Big Tech to assist — all for the purpose of interdicting the commission of state crimes, has come with a price to liberty I don’t think the majority of citizens are willing to continue to pay. //

It’s a daunting task. Taking a wrecking ball to the current internal structure is only half the solution. Fixing what is broken by introducing hundreds of new management personnel into the ranks, while at the same time working to cull the resistance from among the Special Agent work force will be the more lasting legacy of what Patel leaves behind when his time is done.

"The bipartisan FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 directs the Administration to hire the maximum number of air traffic controllers. That’s what the law says, so the Administration must rescind this ridiculous executive order,” Ranking Member Larsen said. “Hiring air traffic controllers is the number one safety issue according to the entire aviation industry. Instead of working to improve aviation safety and lower costs for hardworking American families, the Administration is choosing to spread bogus DEI claims to justify this decision. I'm not surprised by the President’s dangerous and divisive actions, but the Administration must reverse course. Let’s get back to aviation safety and allow the FAA to do its job protecting the flying public.”

The Obama administration dropped a skill-based system for selecting and hiring air traffic controllers (ATCs), and replaced it with a new system designed to favor applicants on the basis of their race. It makes no sense. Worse yet, it is illegal and unconstitutional. The FAA purged its system of thousands of previously-qualified, ready-to-hire applicants simply because they did not fit the right biographical profile. The government endangered public safety and owes restitution for this grave injustice.

Many bureaucracies within the federal government are stocked with people who believe they are above being accountable to voters, and one of the worst is the Government Services Administration (GSA). While it ostensibly exists to manage federal workspaces, it has long been run by far-left lunatics who seek to subvert any attempts at reform while pushing woke nonsense. //

Remember that viral video from 2022 of Kamala Harris telling people at a meeting that her pronouns are "she and her," and that she's "wearing a blue suit"? That was the doing of 18F's policies. //

neverenoughcaffeine
an hour ago
Anyone wonder what PDT was doing over the last 4 years besides fighting lawsuits and criminal prosecutions? I'd say he was learning a whole lot about the crap that goes on inside the US government and then hiring the peole who clued him in. No other way he could have uncovered this nonsense and done what he has in less then 2 weeks. //

Cafeblue32
an hour ago
I think describing people for the blind is hilarious. What if they're born blind or have been from infancy? How does a born blind person know what the color purple looks like? I don't know. For me, describing things to blind people they can't see and that they never asked for is just one more reminder of the world they're missing out on.

Describing a color is impossible. We know what they do and scientifically how they are made, but the actual color itself defies description. Thus, it is all for the sighted people in the room to approve of their virtue. //

Tech in RL
41 minutes ago
GSA was in Trump's crosshairs because of the documents "scandal." The National Archives and the GSA have a service for every outgoing president to organize and ship their documents. GSA has offered this service to every president but Trump. They didn't coordinate with Trump's transition team but just jammed documents randomly into boxes so that no one knew what was in any of them. That's how napkins and magazine articles ended up in the same boxes as classified documents. I doubt Trump even knew half of the documents that went to Mar-a-lago because GSA didn't bother to organize them.

The Trump team probably thinks GSA set the trap for an FBI raid by stuffing classified documents in places no one expected. That is their incentive to gut that agency.

We are well past the point of this being a matter of Republicans being confident this stuff is an electoral loser. The empirical data tells us it is. The 2024 election saw Donald Trump come roaring back into the White House, winning the popular vote while heavily promoting an anti-woke agenda. Analysts in the press repeatedly claimed the now-president's ads on transgenderism that ended with "Kamala is for they/them, Trump is for you" (or some variation) would alienate people. Instead, they were the most effective ads of the cycle.

Democrats hinted at changing course on far-left identity insanity shortly after the election, but if the answers at this DNC forum are any indication, they've dropped that idea altogether and are going full-bore in the other direction. //

Democrats can't help but do the Principal Skinner meme again and again. You see, it's not that they are out of touch and completely unappealing to normal people due to their insane policy prescriptions and ideological viewpoints. It's just that people are too stupid to see how great they are and simply need to be fed better propaganda. //

But hey, if Democrats want to keep banging the woke drum, I'd encourage them to do it. Republicans may never lose another election if they keep this up. //

The Left only destroys
35 minutes ago
Bonchie, I HATE this headline. It ain't over till it's over, and it will never be over. Complacency almost cost us the republic, and we came back from the brink. Conservatives need to run their elections at all times as if they are behind. Don't let up on efforts to eliminate leftism. Never assume victory.

Vince Lombardi told his players in their first meeting, "Gentlemen, we are going to relentlessly pursue perfection, knowing all along we will never achieve it, but in pursuing perfection, we will catch excellence." A similar sentiment applies here. We must relentlessly pursue elimination of Leftism, knowing all along we will never achieve it, but in pursuing it, we will catch peace and prosperity. //

Laocoön of Troy bk
23 minutes ago edited
There might be a reason for the Dems to keep American Indians out of the leadership of the DNC. In the 2024 election, 65% of American Indians voted for Trump. That was his highest percentage among the various "minorities". 65% is a MASSIVE landslide in terms of preference in a General Election.

The craziest of the crazy lefties...I'm lookin' at you Hogg...are soft, white, wealthy women with a terminal case of white liberal guilt. Except for the girl thing...that would be Hogg and his comrades.

Brytek
4 hours ago
As a “brown” person, I see DEI for what it is - A sustainable means to keep brown and other peoples down and ignorant, forever needing these white elites hand ups. As a brown person I compete quite well against any and all takers in my chosen profession, without the need for some a-hole lefty looking to “help” me out of my dignity and self worth. DEI is an apartheid tool masquerading as manna from heaven. Did it help KJP, no, as it set all who look like her who are competent back a generation, back into the chattel pens of the democrats. DEI is the Democrats Evil Indoctrination system. //

anon-fl4c
4 hours ago
Do you see what Trump is doing here? JD is going to be part of the package at every turn. Not the guy in the back looking stern or smiling and nodding when the situation calls for it. Trump is going to make JD the most recognized VP in history so that by 2028, everyone knows JD Vance. Brilliant move.

stripmallgrackle anon-fl4c
an hour ago edited
Vance will have a record he can run on. He will not only speak for Trump, he will be given credit for his input on decisions made, and he will be given the latitude to rise or fail. In short, he will have credentials when he runs in '28.

I vaguely remember a think piece I read, probably during the Carter excursion, about the need for a co-presidency as an answer to the increasingly complex responsibilities of the president. I suspect this presidency will be just that.

Wherever Trump goes there will be at least one man in the room who knows, with every fiber of his being, that he isn't a lame duck. Anyone who believes he can't buck history needs to rewatch The Apprentice.

anon-fl4c stripmallgrackle
an hour ago
And this is why I think this is so extraordinary. I was a teenager in the Carter years so I didn’t read what you are referencing but I will say this, there has never been a promotion of a VP like this in my lifetime. The ego of Clinton would not permit it, and the disastrous choices of Bush 43 and Obama would not allow it. Vance is being groomed by Trump for good reason, as is the rest of his cabinet choices. Trump is protecting the future legacy of MAGA for us all. A beautiful thing indeed.

stripmallgrackle anon-fl4c
an hour ago
Add to that, that whatever remains of conventional wisdom in the DNC forced Biden to choose Kamigula II as his running mate. Clearly, there is a difference between craving power and knowing how to use it.

That last part may be the most MAGA thing I've ever said.

mopani stripmallgrackle
2 minutes ago
Exactly. Trump doesn't crave power, and so he is not afraid to share it, to share the spotlight. Just like he gave his podium to the victims in North Carolina, he gives his VP the podium and the limelight.

Staffing at the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to an internal preliminary Federal Aviation Administration safety report about the collision that was reviewed by The New York Times.

The controller who was handling helicopters in the airport’s vicinity Wednesday night was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways. Those jobs typically are assigned to two controllers, rather than one.

...

The tower [at Reagan] was nearly a third below targeted staff levels, with 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023, according to the most recent Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan, an annual report to Congress that contains target and actual staffing levels. The targets set by the F.A.A. and the controllers’ union call for 30. //

This shocking event follows problematic and likely illegal decisions during the Obama and Biden Administrations that minimized merit and competence in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The Obama Administration implemented a biographical questionnaire at the FAA to shift the hiring focus away from objective aptitude. During my first term, my Administration raised standards to achieve the highest standards of safety and excellence. But the Biden Administration egregiously rejected merit-based hiring, requiring all executive departments and agencies to implement dangerous "diversity equity and inclusion" tactics, and specifically recruiting individuals with "severe intellectual" disabilities in the FAA.

On my second day in office, I ordered an immediate return to merit-based recruitment, hiring, and promotion, elevating safety and ability as the paramount standard. Yesterday's devastating accident tragically underscores the need to elevate safety and competence as the priority of the FAA.