Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

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The president’s appearance came after weeks of requests from reporters and speculation about why the White House was delaying the decision to have him hold a news conference. Mr. Biden’s advisers had said that the plan had been to pass the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package into law before holding one.

As he took questions for over an hour, the president also did little to fuel the narrative being crafted by conservative news media that he is lacking in his mental facilities. He appeared well prepared and sure of his facts, although he did refer to the “North China Sea,” which does not exist.

During the news conference, a limited number of journalists were allowed in the room. Those who attended wore masks and sat six feet apart to comply with social-distancing rules. Mr. Biden called on reporters by their first names, from a list drawn up beforehand by his staff.

In that sense, it was another return to normalcy, after four years of Mr. Trump’s free-for-all, fact-challenged news conferences. At one, Mr. Trump mocked a reporter for wearing what he called “the largest mask I think I’ve ever seen” and at another claimed that injecting disinfectants into the human body could help combat the coronavirus. Reporters shouted to be heard, and Mr. Trump appeared to relish the chaos.

Mr. Biden’s performance, in contrast, was relatively sedate.

“It’s a really big relief after four years, when every presidential news conference was a cataclysmic event,” said Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist. She said Mr. Biden had stayed on message and “has woven in empathy into everything he does.”

“Biden did what he needed to do,” said David Axelrod, a former top adviser to Mr. Obama. “He drove the progress on the virus at the top, parried difficult questions on the border and filibuster, and generally refrained from making unwelcome news.”

It is unclear where Mr. Biden will fall in terms of regularly addressing the news media in a formal setting. Mr. Trump gave 44 formal news conferences during his presidency, though he regularly had lengthy question-and-answer sessions with reporters during Oval Office events or before crossing the White House lawn to board Marine One. Mr. Obama held 65 news conferences, according to data compiled by The American Presidency Project, which tracks such solo appearances.

Mr. Biden also left a series of open questions about some of the most politically contentious problems facing his administration. He would not say how soon he planned to allow reporters to see the conditions at migrant detention facilities along the U.S.-Mexico border. He did not commit to a timeline for pulling American troops out of Afghanistan. And he declined multiple times to say whether he would try to change how the Senate functions.

In those moments, Mr. Biden, a politician who has only recently embraced the art of restraint, seemed aware of the perils of making promises to a room full of reporters.

“I’m not going to lay out a strategy in front of the whole world,” he said, “and you, now.”

Put quite simply, if creepy Joe was your pilot, would you board that plane?

The ATP (Airline Transport Pilot) License

The governing body for the aviation industry in the United States is the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). For someone to work as a pilot in the United States, they need to meet all requirements the FAA has set for airline pilots in order to earn a Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) license. This license is the one required for pilots who will be flying with paid passengers as airline pilots do.

The ATP license is the highest level of license available to a pilot in the United States and requires the most training, flight time, and experience to earn.

Although each airline does have some of their own hiring standards, you will first have to meet these federal requirements to even have the ATP license in the first place.

Airline Pilot Eligibility

In order to be eligible to earn the Airline Transport Pilot license, you’ll first have to meet some basic eligibility requirements. This is before you have taken any tests or applied for a job. This just lets the FAA know that with enough training and practice, you might be able to become an airline pilot.

Here is a list of these requirements:

Be of good moral character
You must be at least 23 years old
Hold a current commercial pilot license and instrument rating
Pass FAA medical exam (learn more: FAA Medical Exam)
Meet all required training, flight hours, and testing requirements

As you can see, before beginning your journey to become an airline pilot, you’ll first have to pass a medical exam as well as have some flying experience. This means that for most people, you aren’t going to go from never having flown a plane directly to airline pilot.

You’ll likely have to learn the basics of being a pilot by learning to fly smaller planes and earning lower licenses before eventually working your way up to the ATP license.
FAA Medical Exam

One requirement for becoming an airline pilot that worries a lot of people is the medical exam. You’ll have to go through a process of getting a medical exam specifically to be cleared to be a pilot.

Many prospective pilots that have some pre-existing condition worry about this exam. The fear for many people is that unless you are perfectly healthy you won’t be allowed to become a pilot. In reality, the goal of this exam is to make sure that you and your passengers are safe.

There are many pilots that have health issues that are managed by a doctor. As long as you are staying on your medication and are completely upfront with what health issues you have, many of them can be accommodated.

We have an entire article on this medical exam as well as an article on the vision requirements for pilots in case you wear glasses or contacts.

Education Requirements

A common question we hear all the time is if a college degree is required to be an airline pilot. The answer can be a little complicated. Generally speaking, the answer is no. The FAA does not require airline pilots to have a bachelors degree. The catch is that many of the airlines either require it, or prefer it.

For many of the larger airlines here in the United States (American, United, Delta, Southwest) a college degree is required to be an airline pilot. For some of the smaller airlines (Allegiant, Spirit, Hawaiian) a college degree is not required although they would prefer it.

For the airlines that do require a college degree, they do not have a requirement as to what that degree is in. So, if you have a degree in an unrelated subject and eventually want to become an airline pilot, you should be fine provided you meet all other requirements.

If you don’t have a college degree, you can still work as an airline pilot for one of the smaller/regional airlines. If you want to someday get a job flying with the larger airline, you’ll likely have to go back to school to earn that degree.

Flight Time Requirements

In order to earn your ATP license, you’ll have to get quite of bit of flying under your belt. In order to ensure that airline pilots are the highest trained and most experienced pilots in the sky, the FAA has the following requirements:

1500 hours of flight time, including…
500 hours of this being cross-country time
100 hours of night flying
50 hours in the class of airplane you’ll be getting a rating for
75 hours of instrument time
250 hours of flight time as pilot in command
Pass written tests
Pass practical tests (practice flights)

All of this is in addition to already having earned:

Commercial pilot license
Instrument rating

If this seems like a lot of flying – it’s because it is. In fact, most airline pilots cut the costs on all of these flight hours by first earning one of the pilot licenses that requires less training then getting a job using that license to build up hours. For example, you can earn your commercial pilot license then work as a cargo pilot. That way, you are getting paid to get those 1500+ flight hours instead of paying to rent an airplane and hire an instructor.
Written and Practical Exams

Once you’ve completed all of the training needed and have all of the flight hours listed above, you’ll finally have the opportunity to earn your airline transport pilot license. To do so, you’ll have to pass both a written and a practical test.

The written test is exactly what it sounds like – an exam to test your knowledge as a pilot. The practical exam is a hands-on test actually flying an aircraft.

Appearance Standards

Have you ever noticed while travelling that pilots seem to always look nearly perfect? That is because airline pilots have to adhere to the appearance standards that their airline has set. For airline pilots, this typically includes the following:

Uniform that is clean and pressed
Little or no facial hair (beards are typically not allowed, other facial hair might depending on airline)
No visible tattoos
No visible face or body piercings (aside from one ear piercing per ear for ladies)

Pilots have to have an image of experienced and trustworthy professionals. These rules are set up to make sure that passengers see them in this positive light. Make sure that you keep these appearance standards in mind as you prepare for your potential career as an airline pilot.

Pre-Employment Process

Finally, once you’ve met all of the requirements to be an airline pilot and an airline is willing to hire you, you’ll still be required to meet all the requirements your new employer has. For airline pilots, this includes:

In-person interview
Criminal background check
Drug Test
Ongoing random drug and alcohol screenings

The goal is for the airline to make sure you are qualified as a pilot and able to safely transport passengers.

In addition, many airlines like to meet you to get to know you and your personality. As a pilot, you’ll be working in close quarters with other pilots, flight attendants, and other members of the team. Airlines want to make sure you can work well as part of a team and will be a good employee, thus the typical job interview (both over the phone and in-person).

Far-Right Extremists Move From ‘Stop the Steal’ to Stop the Vaccine

Adherents of far-right groups who cluster online have turned repeatedly to one particular website in recent weeks — the federal database showing deaths and adverse reactions nationwide among people who have received Covid-19 vaccinations.

Although negative reactions have been relatively rare, the numbers are used by many extremist groups to try to bolster a rash of false and alarmist disinformation in articles and videos with titles like “Covid-19 Vaccines Are Weapons of Mass Destruction — and Could Wipe out the Human Race” or “Doctors and Nurses Giving the Covid-19 Vaccine Will be Tried as War Criminals.”

If the so-called Stop the Steal movement appeared to be chasing a lost cause once President Biden was inaugurated, its supporters among extremist organizations are now adopting a new agenda from the anti-vaccination campaign to try to undermine the government.

Bashing of the safety and efficacy of vaccines is occurring in chat rooms frequented by all manner of right-wing groups including the Proud Boys; the Boogaloo movement, a loose affiliation known for wanting to spark a second Civil War; and various paramilitary organizations.

These groups tend to portray vaccines as a symbol of excessive government control. “If less people get vaccinated then the system will have to use more aggressive force on the rest of us to make us get the shot,” read a recent post on the Telegram social media platform, in a channel linked to members of the Proud Boys charged in storming the Capitol.

The marked focus on vaccines is particularly striking on discussion channels populated by followers of QAnon, who had falsely prophesied that Donald J. Trump would continue as president while his political opponents were marched off to jail.

“They rode the shift in the national conversation away from Trump to what was happening with the massive ramp up in vaccines,” said Devin Burghart, the head of the Seattle-based Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, which monitors far-right movements, referring to followers of QAnon. “It allowed them to pivot away from the failure of their previous prophecy to focus on something else.”

The Australian attorney general Christian Porter has admitted being the subject of a 1988 rape allegation, (which he denies,) but the police won’t pursue that matter because the victim has died.