Month: July 2025

TLDR: The FO was the pilot flying. After gaining hardly 500 feet of altitude, the Captain pulled back the fuel supply switches for both engines, from Run to Cutoff. The CVR transcript is widely available by now. The picture below shows switches in the Cutoff position. It is impossible for these switches to be accidentally toggled, because they require a human with two fingers to grip the switch, pull it up out of the socket, transverse over a detent between the two positions, then drop it back down again. When the FO turned them back on, #1 fired, but took too long to reverse the downspooling fan blades. #2 never reignited. May God have mercy on the 260 murdered souls. -nvp

Air India cockpit recording suggests captain cut fuel to engines before crash, source says

WASHINGTON/SEATTLE, July 17 (Reuters) – A cockpit recording of dialogue between the two pilots of the Air India flight that crashed last month supports the view that the captain cut the flow of fuel to the plane’s engines, said a source briefed on U.S. officials’ early assessment of evidence.

The first officer was at the controls of the Boeing 787 and asked the captain why he moved the fuel switches into a position that starved the engines of fuel and requested that he restore the fuel flow, the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity because the matter remains under investigation.

The U.S. assessment is not contained in a formal document, said the source, who emphasized the cause of the June 12 crash in Ahmedabad, India, that killed 260 people remains under investigation.

There was no cockpit video recording definitively showing which pilot flipped the switches, but the weight of evidence from the conversation points to the captain, according to the early assessment.

The Wall Street Journal first reported similar information on Wednesday about the world’s deadliest aviation accident in a decade.
India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), which is leading the investigation into the crash, said in a statement on Thursday that “certain sections of the international media are repeatedly attempting to draw conclusions through selective and unverified reporting.” It added the investigation was ongoing and it remained too early to draw definitive conclusions.

The London-bound plane began to lose thrust, and after reaching a height of 650 feet, the jet started to sink. The fuel switches for both engines were turned back to “run”, and the airplane automatically tried restarting the engines, the report said.

But the plane was too low and too slow to be able to recover, aviation safety expert John Nance told Reuters.
The plane clipped some trees and a chimney before crashing in a fireball into a building on a nearby medical college campus, the report said, killing 19 people on the ground and 241 of the 242 on board the 787.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/air-india-cockpit-recording-suggests-captain-cut-fuel-engines-before-crash-2025-07-18/

From “Dad29:”

Wauck does not believe that the conspirators Obama, Casey, Brennan, and Comey (et.al.) can be tried for treason.  That is a very steep hill and the AG doesn’t have enough ‘stuff’ in the documents to climb it.

That said, Wauck was reminded of 18 USC Section 371:

…If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both….

And the definition of “fraud” is very broad, indeed!

…”To conspire to defraud the United States means primarily to cheat the Government out of property or money, but it also means to interfere with or obstruct one of its lawful governmental functions by deceit, craft or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest. It is not necessary that the Government shall be subjected to property or pecuniary loss by the fraud, but only that its legitimate official action and purpose shall be defeated by misrepresentation, chicane or the overreaching of those charged with carrying out the governmental intention.”…SCOTUS in Hammerschmidt

After 7-8 years of wrangling and appeals, the max is 5 years in Club Fed.

Plan accordingly. 

https://dad29.blogspot.com/2025/07/treason-nope-but-fraud-yup.html

Another cross post, this one from Adam Piggott. I listened to the audio from the LifeSite board meeting. Some serious charges, but also much pearl clutching, particularly from Patrick the Comptroller. While hurling charge after charge against JHW, he repeatedly states “I take no pleasure in this,” whilst he is clearly getting off on it. -nvp

Why does Lifesite News have a CEO?

By Adam

The public ping pong at Lifesite News continues. Westen is now back in, there is leaked audio of the board meeting, and a lot of people on that audio come off as self serving assholes.

I have little sympathy for Westen. Why exactly does a website need a board of directors? It smacks of someone wanting to be seen as very important indeed, or wanting their business to seem very important indeed. Well, if you decide you want a board then you’ll have to fill it. And 90% of people are idiots, and that’s without the self serving or asshole parts.

I have some small experience in these matters. If you set something up and you want to retain control when it gets bigger, keep it simple stupid. You don’t need a board and you certainly do not need a CEO. The CEO is the epitome of business modernism. How ironic that a website designed to fight the scourge of modernism put in place a CEO. That’s like the Orthodox Church electing a pope.

If Westen wants to hang on and return Lifesite to its original ethos of directly pointing out heresy and modernism in the Catholic Church then he has only one option; fire the entire board, fire the CEO, fire and fire and fire some more. Clean house with ruthless and brutal efficiency. He could probably burn some public effigies while he’s at it. I’d also get a real exorcist in and do some serious spiritual cleansing.

Then hire some real firebrand Catholic writers that don’t use big words, that are not academics, that don’t rely on smoking cigars or drinking pints of fruity IPA as some sort of Trad Inc members club, but who have some balls and are willing to point out the hypocrites when they see them.

This stuff isn’t complicated. The Bible is not complicated. Jesus was not complicated. He was very clear, very direct, and His message was fearfully simple. Our enemies embedded on our side love to make things complicated. They love to use esoteric terms and teachings to muddy the waters, like the clown described here by Chris Jackson.

Can Westen do it? I don’t know, but if he doesn’t then Lifesite is doomed which was the goal of his enemies from the beginning.

https://pushingrubberdownhill.com/2025/07/19/why-did-lifesite-news-have-a-ceo/

I have some pressing matters this morning, so I hope Mary Ann doesn’t mind me cross posting in full:

The Coup that Failed: Liars Never Prosper…

 

Is this what the board didn’t want published?

…at least in the long run.

The 8th Commandment isn’t a suggestion.

The truth about the attempted coup at LifeSiteNews is coming out and it’s ugly. You can read the whole sordid tale at Chris Jackson’s Hiraeth in Exile.

A short synopsis: Some of the board members and the co-CEO, Robert Hoover, didn’t like the direction that LifeSiteNews was taking under Westen. They didn’t want any criticism of Pope Leo’s actions. They wanted to change the brand of LSN. What exactly that brand would look like we don’t know.

 

So they took a survey. Only about 20% of the employees responded. The board claimed everybody gave John-Henry Westen a thumbs down. Stephen Kokx, the journalist fired at the same time as Westen, responded to the survey. He disputed that tale since he did not give negative comments about Westen. How many others are with him? I don’t know if Maike Hickson, whom I know personally, responded to the the survey, but following the coup she quit in solidarity with Westen.

The survey results haven’t been released. (Does this sound familiar? Were they channeling Pope Francis?)

Chris Jackson began his article with this:

LifeSiteNews was never supposed to be respectable.

It was loud, confrontational, unapologetically pro-life, and willing to say what other Catholic outlets wouldn’t: that the Church is in crisis, and that the problem isn’t just secularism, it’s the men in miters enabling it. For over two decades, John-Henry Westen was the face of that mission.

And last week, the board tried to get rid of him.

Thanks to a leaked recording and statements from former employees, we now have a clearer picture of what really happened behind the scenes. It wasn’t just a personnel dispute. It was an ideological knife fight, thinly veiled as an “administrative decision.”

The attempted coup failed, for now, and you have yourselves to thank! You let your voices be heard and it had an effect. As of July 18, 2025, Westen has been reinstated as CEO and President of LifeSiteNews, though “subject to administrative review and investigation.”

But the deeper problem remains. A once-militant Catholic news outlet is now infested with careerists, climate liturgy defenders, and opinion-policing board members who seem more scandalized by alleged sedevacantists than by sacrilege in Rome.

What bothered me most in the article was the involvement of Bishop Joseph Strickland. I hoped that he was another victim of the lies rather than an active participant in the coup attempt. But that’s hard to believe based on the leaked audio of the board meeting [Source] which is available here. [I have not listened to the entire audio, only the first It’s obvious that the anonymous sender thought the audio would sink Westen. The act seems to have backfired. Most of the employees (80%) did not reply to the survey so to make the survey the hammer was dishonest.

Jackson ends his article with this:

 

This wasn’t just a leadership shakeup. It was an attempted course correction: a quiet, donor-friendly decapitation of LifeSite’s traditionalist legacy.

The goal? Soften the tone. Broaden the appeal. Distance the site from “radicals” who question papal legitimacy or the morality of synodal documents. In short: become another respectable Catholic outlet that laments the crisis but never names its architects.

If Westen had gone quietly, the purge would be complete. But thanks to the work of Stephen Kokx, Liz Yore, Frank Walker, Steve Bannon, and the outcry from you, dear readers, it has been exposed and stopped…for now.

The question going forward isn’t just whether Westen keeps his job. It’s whether LifeSiteNews keeps its mission.

If you want even more drama, there are some very interesting comments from Jackson’s readers here. There are also some legitimate criticisms of Westen’s promotion of questionable visionaries here.

For now, John-Henry is back. Let’s pray for LSN and all the employees. I am frankly tired of the internecine warfare and this may be my last post on this soap opera. God knows the truth. I suspect much of it has more to do with egos and personality conflicts than substance.

For a brief announcement about Westen’s restoration go to Catholic Vote.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/john-henry-westen-restored-as-lifesite-president-and-ceo/

The GoFundMe for Braman raised more than $88,000, with former Texans star J.J. Watt giving $10,000 and other former teammates also contributing.

“Rest in Peace brother,” Watt wrote on social media. “Gone far too soon.”

The Eagles and Texans also shared their remorse over Braman’s death.

“During his four seasons in Philadelphia, Bryan was a loyal teammate, a supporter of the community, and a valuable member of our Super Bowl LII-winning team,” the Eagles said in a statement. “More importantly, he was a devoted father who passionately loved his family and everyone around him. We extend our deepest condolences to Bryan’s family and all who are grieving his loss during this difficult time.”

Said the Texans: “We are deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Bryan Braman. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Braman family during this difficult time.”

https://6abc.com/post/former-eagles-lb-bryan-braman-dies-age-38/17161336/

Stephen Kokx, who was also fired, from his new substack:

LifeSite’s Board Chairman Dominic Ismert has informed company co-founder John-Henry Westen that after seeking legal advice he believes Westen’s removal as CEO earlier this month was illegal.

“The vote to remove me from the Board of LifeSiteNews and from CEO was not carried out in accordance with the bylaws of our organization,” Westen said in an email that he sent to all LifeSite staff and board members today via a personal account, after speaking with Ismert.

“Therefore until such time as the Board convenes to make a lawful determination on the matter I remain both CEO and on the Board of LifeSiteNews,” he added.

The email — the text of which is below — was promptly removed from staff inboxes by new co-CEO Robert Hoover, who sent employees a new email condemning the move while also defending Westen’s removal.

Dear LifeSite staff, and Board Members,

Read the rest:

https://kokxnews.substack.com/p/breaking-lifesite-board-chair-says

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114863203348237352