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For Immediate Release
May, 16 2025, 04:04pm EDT
Contact:
Jimmy Wyderko: jwyderko@economicliberties.us
As Air Travel Faces Crisis, Secretary Duffy Deflects and Distorts
Following US Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s recent and repeated failure to clarify pressing life-and-death issues related to aviation safety—while criticizing his predecessor in the Biden administration—the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.
“No one denies the need to modernize air traffic control and strengthen the FAA. But you can’t fix the system by rewriting history and dodging responsibility,” said William J. McGee, Senior Fellow for Aviation & Travel at American Economic Liberties Project. “Secretary Sean Duffy has repeatedly failed to support the FAA and ATC modernization when it mattered. Ahead of a busy upcoming summer travel season, finger-pointing at the Biden Administration won’t make flying safer — and it’s especially rich given Secretary Buttigieg was among the few DOT Secretaries in decades to take meaningful steps to modernize our decades-old ATC system.”
“In back-to-back hearings on the FAA Reauthorization Act this week, Congress was blocked from getting straight answers on the health of our air traffic control system—because Secretary Duffy wasn’t there,” McGee added. “Whether he declined to attend or was never invited, the result was the same: lawmakers were left questioning deputies who were unable to answer basic questions about staffing or budgets. One even claimed to be unaware of the 332 FAA employees recently fired—despite widespread reporting on the matter.”
In the wake of repeated ATC failures at Newark Liberty International Airport, Duffy proposed a “big beautiful” modernization of ATC within four years, while the Government Accountability Office recently estimated modernization will take 10-13 years. In response to criticism of the FAA, Duffy has repeatedly stated that all ATC failures are due to former Secretary Pete Buttigieg, despite Buttigieg improving the controller pipeline and FAA’s own website documenting his hiring of 1,500 controllers in 2023.
Duffy’s words and actions have not aligned. As a member of Congress in 2019, he and 179 other Republicans voted against FAA funding. And just this month he warned DOT employees of further DOGE firings amidst worker buyouts. Duffy also ignores how the first Trump administration failed to address FAA staffing shortages and equipment failures and was best known for two crippling government shutdowns that left unpaid controllers “demoralized.”
Economic Liberties and many others have long noted the need for overhauling ATC and strengthening the FAA. But gaslighting about the causes won’t provide a fix; the fact is that Republicans have not acted meaningfully to address these problems and playing the blame game ignores the historical record.
Learn more about Economic Liberties here.
The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America's system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.
LATEST NEWS
12 Dead After Shooters Target Hanukkah Celebration at Australia's Bondi Beach
"The images out of Bondi Beach in Australia this morning of a vile, antisemitic massacre at a Hanukkah celebration are shocking, disgusting, and heartbreaking," said Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a US Senate candidate.
Dec 14, 2025
This is a developing story… Please check back for updates…
At least a dozen people are dead, including a gunman, and dozens of others were transported to various hospitals for injuries after shooters attacked a Hanukkah celebration at the iconic Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia.
New South Wales Police confirmed that one suspect was killed and another is in custody, and a suspected improvised explosive device (IED) was found in a nearby vehicle, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"One of the gunmen has been identified as Naveed Akram from Bonnyrigg in Sydney's southwest," ABC also reported. "An official, speaking on condition of anonymity, says Mr Akram's home in Bonnyrigg is being raided by police."
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the shooting "a targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukkah, which should be a day of joy, a celebration of faith," and "an act of evil, antisemitism, terrorism, that has struck the heart of our nation."
"There is no place for this hate, violence, and terrorism in our nation," he continued, noting that many people remain alive "because of the courage and quick action of the New South Wales Police, and the first responders who rushed to their aid, as well as the courage of everyday Australians who, without hesitating, put themselves in danger in order to keep their fellow Australians safe."
A video of one such bystander has swiftly circulated online: A man identified as Ahmed al Ahmed tackled one gunman and took his weapon. A 7NEWS reporter spoke with a cousin of the 43-year-old Muslim fruit shop owner and father of two at the hospital. The "hero," as his cousin and many others have called him, was shot twice and had surgery, but should be OK.
The video garnered attention around the world. Democratic congressional candidate and outgoing New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is Jewish, acknowledged the "extraordinary courage" of the man who "bravely risked his life to save his neighbors celebrating Hanukkah." Lander added: "Praying for his full and speedy recovery. And so deeply inspired by his example."
As the Associated Press noted Sunday:
Mass shootings in Australia are extremely rare. A 1996 massacre in the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur, where a lone gunman killed 35 people, prompted the government to drastically tighten gun laws and made it much more difficult for Australians to acquire firearms.
Significant mass shootings this century included two murder-suicides with death tolls of five people in 2014, and seven in 2018, in which gunmen killed their own families and themselves.
In 2022, six people were killed in a shootout between police and Christian extremists at a rural property in Queensland state.
The attack in Australia followed a deadly shooting Saturday at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island in the United States, where such incidents are far more common.
In the largest US city, the New York Police Department said Sunday that "we are in touch with our Australian partners, and at this time we see no nexus to NYC. We are deploying additional resources to public Hanukkah celebrations and synagogues out of an abundance of caution."
American leaders and political candidates also condemned the Sunday attack, including Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic US Senate candidate in Michigan who said that "the images out of Bondi Beach in Australia this morning of a vile, antisemitic massacre at a Hanukkah celebration are shocking, disgusting, and heartbreaking. The shooters deliberately attacked families celebrating a holiday because of their faith. There is no justification for such a cowardly act of terrorism."
"Our family is praying for the victims and their families—and for Jewish communities in Australia and around the world," added El-Sayed, who is Muslim. "I join my Jewish sisters and brothers grieving these attacks. And we stand resolved to stamp out antisemitism and hate in all its forms."
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'We Don't Have to Live This Way': Deadly Brown Shooting Spurs Calls for Action on Guns
"Our lawmakers fail us every day that they refuse to take action on gun violence," said Students Demand Action.
Dec 13, 2025
With at least two people dead, several others in critical but stable condition at Rhode Island Hospital, and a suspect at large after a Saturday shooting at Brown University in Providence, gun violence prevention advocates and some US lawmakers renewed calls for swift action to take on what the nonprofit Brady called "a uniquely American problem" that "is completely preventable."
"Our hearts are with the victims, survivors, their families, and the entire community of Brown University and the surrounding Providence area in this horrific time," said Brady president Kris Brown in a statement. "As students prepare for finals and then head home to loved ones for the holidays, our all-too-American gun violence crisis has shattered their safety."
"Guns are the leading cause of death for youth in this nation. Only in America do we live in fear of being shot and killed in our schools, places of worship, and grocery stores," she continued. "Now, as students, faculty, and staff hide and barricade themselves in immense fear, we once again call on lawmakers in Congress and around the country to take action against this uniquely American public health crisis. We cannot continue to allow politics and special interests to take priority over our lives and safety."
Despite some early misinformation, no suspects are in custody, and authorities are searching for a man in dark clothing. The law enforcement response is ongoing and Brown remains in lockdown, according to a 9:29 pm Eastern update on the university's website. Everyone is urged to shelter in place, which "means keeping all doors locked and ensuring no movement across campus."
The Ivy League university's president, Christina H. Paxson, said in a public message that "this is a deeply tragic day for Brown, our families, and our local community. There are truly no words that can express the deep sorrow we are feeling for the victims of the shooting that took place today at the Barus & Holley engineering and physics building."
US Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said on social media that he was "praying for the victims and their families," and thanked the first responders who "put themselves in harm’s way to protect all of us." He also echoed the city's mayor, Brett Smiley, "in urging Rhode Islanders to heed only official updates from Brown University and the Providence Police."
In a statement, US Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) also acknowledged everyone impacted by "this horrific, active, and unfolding tragedy," and stressed the importance of everyone listening to law enforcement "as they continue working to ensure the entire campus and surrounding community is safe, and the threat is neutralized."
The state's two Democratic congressmen, Brown alumnus Seth Magaziner and Gabe Amo, released similar statements. Amo also said that "the scourge of mass shootings is a horrific stain on our nation. We must seek policies to ensure that these tragedies do not strike yet another community and no more lives are needlessly taken from us."
Elected officials at various levels of government across the country sent their condolences to the Brown community. Some also used the 389th US mass shooting this year and the 230th gun incident on school grounds—according to Brady's president—to argue that, as US House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.) put it, "it's past time for us to act and stop senseless gun violence from happening again."
Both Democratic US senators from Massachusetts also emphasized on Saturday that, in Sen. Elizabeth Warren's words, "students should be able to learn in peace, not fear gun violence." Her colleague Sen. Ed Markey said that "we must act now to end this painful epidemic of gun violence. Our children should be safe at school."
New York City's democratic socialist mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, noted that this shooting occurred just before the anniversary of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut:
This senseless violence—once considered unfathomable—has become nauseatingly normal to all of us across our nation. Tonight, on the eve of the anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting, we find ourselves in mourning once again.
The epidemic of gun violence stretches across America. We reckon with it when we step into our houses of worship and out onto our streets, when we drop our children off at kindergarten and when we fear if those children, now grown, will be safe on campus. But unlike so many other epidemics, we possess the cure. We have the power to eradicate this suffering from our lives if we so choose.
I send my deepest condolences to the families of the victims, and to the Brown and Providence communities, who are wrestling with a grief that will feel familiar to far too many others. May we never allow ourselves to grow numb to this pain, and let us rededicate ourselves to the enduring work of ending the scourge of gun violence in our nation.
Fred Guttenberg has been advocating against gun violence since his 14-year-old daughter was among those murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida nearly eight years ago. He said on social media that he knows two current students at Brown and asserted that "IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE THIS WAY!!!"
Students Demand Action similarly declared: "Make no mistake: We DO NOT have to live and die like this. Our lawmakers fail us every day that they refuse to take action on gun violence."
Gabby Giffords, a former Democratic congresswoman from Arizona who became an activist after surviving a 2011 assassination attempt, said that "my heart breaks for Brown University. Students should only have to worry about studying for finals right now, not hiding from gunfire. Guns are the leading cause of death for young people in America—this is a five-alarm fire and our leaders in Washington have ignored it for too long. Americans are tired of waiting around for Congress to decide that protecting kids matters."
John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, warned that "we either take action, or we bury more of our kids."
The Associated Press noted that "Rhode Island has some of the strictest gun laws in the US. Last spring the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed an assault weapon ban that will prohibit the sale and manufacturing of certain high-powered firearms, but not their possession, starting next July."
Gun violence prevention advocates often argue for federal restrictions, given that, as Everytown's latest analysis of state-level policies points out, "even the strongest system can't protect a state from its neighbors' weak laws."
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Trump Says 'We Will Retaliate' After Americans Killed, Wounded in Syria
US Central Command said that the "lone ISIS gunman" who targeted the Americans "was engaged and killed."
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Despite publicly seeking a Nobel Peace Prize, President Donald Trump on Saturday told reporters that "we will retaliate" after US Central Command announced that a solo Islamic State gunman killed three Americans—two service members and one civilian—and wounded three other members of the military.
"This is an ISIS attack," Trump said before departing the White House for the Army-Navy football game in Baltimore, according to the Associated Press. He also said the three unidentified American survivors of the ambush "seem to be doing pretty well."
US Central Command said that the "lone ISIS gunman" who targeted the Americans "was engaged and killed," and that in accordance with Department of Defense policy, "the identities of the service members will be withheld until 24 hours after their next of kin have been notified."
Citing three local officials, Reuters reported that the attacker "was a member of the Syrian security forces."
The news agency also noted that a Syrian Interior Ministry spokesperson, Noureddine el-Baba, told the state-run television channel Al-Ikhbariya that the man did not have a leadership role.
"On December 10, an evaluation was issued indicating that this attacker might hold extremist ideas, and a decision regarding him was due to be issued tomorrow, on Sunday," the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, Rosemary Kelanic, director of the Middle East Program at the think tank Defense Priorities, said in a statement that "the deaths and injuries of US personnel in Syria today are tragic reminders that foreign military deployments are risky, costly, and should only be undertaken when vital national security interests are at stake. Sadly, Syria doesn't pass that test."
"The US military destroyed ISIS as a territorial entity more than five years ago, and its fighters pose no threat to the US homeland," Kelanic continued. "The only reason ISIS was able to strike US troops in Syria is because we senselessly left them in harm's way, long after their mission was completed. We must not compound this tragedy by allowing US troops to remain vulnerable to attack on a nebulous mission with no end date. The US should withdraw all forces from Syria and Iraq and let those countries manage their own problems."
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