Shutdown Skies and Sanctuary Storms

Trump brags of waiting lists and world peace while air traffic controllers go unpaid, courts block his ICE crusade, and America braces for turbulence.

Good morning! Welcome back to the turbulence. Literally. If you tried to fly yesterday, you may have noticed your pilot talking into the mic like it was a neighborhood walkie-talkie circa 1987: “Burbank traffic, this is Southwest 2998 departing runway 15. Anyone else in the way, please advise.” That’s not improv comedy, that’s how planes took off when the Hollywood Burbank control tower shut down entirely. Why? Because in Trump’s shutdown economy, the “essential” workers guiding metal tubes across the sky are still on the job but not on the payroll. Some went home. Others called in sick. And so, for hours, one of L.A.’s busiest airports was a no-tower free-for-all.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy gamely insisted the airspace was still “safe”, which is true if you define safety as forcing exhausted, unpaid controllers to meter traffic until the lines at Newark and Denver look like a Taylor Swift ticket sale. The FAA’s own review panel warned years ago that government shutdowns corrode safety by disrupting hiring, training, and modernization. But here we are again, playing chicken with the sky, while Trump brags he’s made America “the hottest country in the world.”

Which brings us neatly to yesterday’s Trump presser, the usual soup of grievance, invention, and self-regard. One moment he was praising a gravel mining road in Alaska as if it were the Hoover Dam, the next he was swearing that “zero” migrants have crossed the border for four straight months, a number that exists only in his own parallel universe. He conjured an imminent Gaza “peace plan” involving Hamas, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and, improbably, Iran, all united behind his wisdom, if you believe the man who also claims tariffs are stopping nuclear war. Trump boasted that America’s armed forces now have “waiting lists” of eager recruits. Reality check: the Pentagon has been dangling prep courses, lowering test score thresholds, raising enlistment ages, and rubber-stamping waivers for everything from weight to weed just to hit their numbers. The Army literally built a remedial boot camp to teach would-be soldiers how to pass the test on a second try. And while Trump imagines young patriots lined up at recruiting stations, ICE is quietly onboarding some “rookie” agents who could be eligible for Social Security before their first pension. Nothing screams national renewal like the promise of a sixty-something rookie chasing migrants through a school parking lot.

And then there was the sanctuary cities tirade. Trump’s obsession with sending federal troops and ICE agents into blue strongholds has already run aground in court, but that hasn’t stopped him. Portland and Chicago have sued to block his deployments. Brandon Johnson signed an executive order telling ICE to get out of Chicago’s school parking lots. Boston’s Michelle Wu and Hoboken’s Ravi Bhalla are firing off letters reminding the feds that intimidation is not a constitutional doctrine. Judges are once again invoking the Tenth Amendment, that pesky clause that says the feds can’t commandeer local governments for their crusades.

Lurking in all of this is Pam Bondi, my second-favorite Trumper to dislike (Karoline Leavitt will always wear the crown). Bondi is the perpetual specter in these fights, puffing up every time a city caves, then promptly losing in court when a judge reminds her the law is still the law. She threatened sanctuary leaders with lawsuits and even criminal charges, declared victory when Louisville folded, and then promptly got her Chicago case tossed into the dumpster. Bondi is like the bad sequel nobody asked for, back again with fewer lines and worse reviews.

Trump is meeting today with Canada’s Mark Carney to talk trade, and then pivoting to a photo op with Edan Alexander, the freed Israeli-American hostage. Ending the shutdown? Not on the docket. The country can choke on flight delays, empty paychecks, and shuttered services. For Trump, the priority is tariffs, staged hostage reunions, and self-praise about “ending seven wars” that no one but him remembers.

So buckle up: the towers are short-staffed, the courts are clogged, the sanctuary cities are bracing, and the president is riffing about imaginary peace deals while the country limps through a shutdown. If you’re wondering how long this lasts, remember the last one ended only when a handful of air traffic controllers called in sick and LaGuardia went gridlock. History doesn’t repeat, but it sure does rhyme, like Trump at a podium, insisting America is safe while the runway lights flicker.

And with that, Marz and I are heading out to grab some trail time while the sun still bothers to shine. I’ve officially graduated into the ranks of fair-weather dog walkers, which feels like the most sensible kind of rebellion these days.